David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are now 46 countries in Afghanistan, and the danger is that the Government of Afghanistan spend all its time in a series of bilateral meetings with each of those Governments instead of getting on with the business of running Afghanistan. The appointment of Mr. Kai Eide as the new UN Secretary-General's representative in Afghanistan is a major opportunity. My meetings with him suggest that he is a serious figure who has the confidence of all sides, and he will be able to play a co-ordination role at national level as well as the rallying role in capitals around the world that is so important.

Jim Murphy: Only the hon. Gentleman could turn a question about the new Italian Government into a question about the Lisbon treaty referendum in the Republic of Ireland.  [Interruption.] He takes it as a compliment, but I take it as a statement of the modern Conservative party and their Europhobia gone mad, running rampant through the middle of the party. When I am in Italy, as I hope to be next week, I will search very hard for a political party anywhere near the Italian mainstream that shares the British Conservative party's view of Europe. As I have reflected before, there are literally dozens of conservative parties in Italy and not one of them shares his obsession with, and dislike of, all things European.

Denis MacShane: May I calm things down a bit? Clearly we must all be sensitive to the election of high officials with whom we do not agree. They might use words such as piccaninnies or xenophobic language, but they are elected, and that is it. Foreign Minister Frattini, as a former Foreign Minister, worked very constructively with this country, and as the EU commissioner on interior affairs he worked constructively, sensitively and tolerantly. Italy is an important country. Its diplomatic service is first-rate. We should construct a positive relationship with Mr. Frattini. After all, the centre-right parties of Europe can only talk to this party in power; they do not talk to the rubbish over there.

Iain Duncan Smith: Can the Chancellor confirm that the 1.1 million losers of whom he spoke earlier are from the lowest income brackets—those earning between just under £7,000 and £8,000 a year? Those people will lose up to £120. Will he confirm that that is the case? Will he now take the opportunity to apologise to them, as his right hon. Friend has done, right now at the Dispatch Box, for all the trouble and fear that he has caused them?

Nigel Griffiths: Does my right hon. Friend share my astonishment at Conservative party's new-found, synthetic concern for poor people? Will he remind the House that, during the last recession, the Conservative crunch left millions of people on the dole, more than 10 million senior citizens without any help with their fuel costs, people with negative equity and record numbers of repossessions?

Michael Gove: I am sure that if the Secretary of State wishes to refresh his memory on our views, he can do so by reading  Hansard. I would recommend that exercise to all.
	We all want admissions to be fair. We all want equity and transparency in admissions. As the Secretary of State, typically generous and consensual, pointed out, we played a part in ensuring that the admissions code formed part of the Education and Inspections Bill. I remember that the Secretary of State was less keen on that Bill as a Back Bencher than some, but, nevertheless, with the help of Conservative votes and after considerable soothing of the fevered brows of Labour Back Benchers, that legislation made its way on to the statute book.
	When it comes to discussing admissions, the Government do not come to the debate with entirely clean hands. We saw the approach that the Secretary of State and his team take to admissions—he alluded to this case—just a few weeks ago. It was not an edifying spectacle. I shall turn in a second to what that episode reveals and how it inevitably affects the discussion of these amendments. First, however, I shall deal with the broader philosophical question behind admissions and the Government's approach to them, as well as our approach and that of the other Opposition parties.
	Unfortunately, there is still an old Labour, socialist approach to the question of admissions. It is not restricted merely to the Back Benches graced by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), but is evident in Sanctuary buildings, too. It is the Secretary of State's belief that what really matters is manipulating access to a limited number of good school places, instead of expanding their number overall. If only he would commit as much intellectual energy to generating more good school places as he does to the micromanagement of their allocation, this country would be in a better place and his political reputation would rank higher today.

Michael Gove: It is always a pleasure to receive your rulings, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	In the debate on grammar schools, some people sometimes take the view that intake determines how good a school is, and that if we manipulates that, we fix everything. The view is taken by some on the extreme left and by others who are stuck in the past. My view is that it is not the social engineering of the intake that makes a good school, but getting the basics right. If a school has the right ethos and good behaviour and discipline, if its leadership team inculcates appropriate values in all those associated with the school, and if high standards are the school's watchword, any school, no matter how challenging its intake, can be good. I—and, I am sure, the Secretary of State—have seen schools with uniquely challenging intakes produce superb results. I have also seen schools in relatively privileged areas where high standards have not been the norm, and where expectations have not been as high as they should be. Those schools have been underperforming.
	It is my contention that deprivation is not destiny. It is the quality of the school, not the background of the intake, that is the decisive factor. It should be the mission of hon. Members from across the House to drive up standards, whatever a school's intake, and to concentrate on the changes that will generate improvements.

Michael Gove: A good question. "Ethos" refers, inevitably, to the qualities that a school has that make it distinctive and special, the qualities that parents admire and pupils appreciate—a commitment to discipline, to high standards, to making sure that an academic curriculum is available to all, a belief that every child, properly taught and appropriately nurtured, can achieve more than the parents may ever have envisaged.
	One of the distinctive features of faith schools is that, whether actuated by the individual tenets of the beliefs that motivated the founders or by the commitment of those within them to good education, they consistently outperform the mean level of other schools. They are something to be cherished, something that the previous Prime Minister made it clear that he cherished, and they are schools that, unfortunately, feel demoralised and under attack as a result of the Secretary of State's intervention—not a happy moment in his career.
	What was the consequence of the Secretary of State's intervention? We had lurid headlines about cash for places. Any suggestion that cash was determining access would have been worth objecting to, but there was no evidence that cash was determining access. As I pointed out on the Floor of the House, the money that was required and requested by those schools was required and requested for good reasons and entirely consistent with established practice, not affected by the clauses and amendments that we are discussing today.
	It was the case that the money that was asked for specifically by Jewish faith schools was asked for to provide the physical security of those children, who face a renewed and increased threat of anti-Semitic attack, and it was also required to pay for the explicitly religious Jewish studies, which are not covered by the amount of money that the DCSF remits for education in those schools. So it is entirely understandable that there should be a request for purely voluntary contributions.
	Within the community concerned, people knew that the contributions were entirely voluntary. It is the case, as was pointed out by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, that in some of those schools a third of parents or less are paying the voluntary contributions requested. If it was the case that those voluntary contributions constituted a barrier, if it was the case that they determined entry, why in those schools would so few be making that contribution? When the Secretary of State launched that attack, he was not aware of the precise figures, how many people had paid or their circumstances. If he had been, I doubt very much whether he would have launched his ill considered attack.

Michael Gove: I appreciate that when it comes to asking for any contribution sensitivity must be applied, but that sensitivity cuts both ways. It is important to ensure that schools ask for a contribution after admissions have been granted and in a way that ensures that members of the community are fully aware of how that money will be deployed. But it is also incumbent on the Secretary of State to show sensitivity to minority faith groups. If he believes, and I believe, that the situation could have been improved, he had a choice. His choice was publicly to name and shame schools in a way that led them to believe that their position was under threat, to see those schools criticised, and to see their names appear in the press under the allegation that there was a somehow a cash for access scam operating. The Secretary of State will have an opportunity later in this debate to disavow that implication, apologise for the coverage that his intervention generated and put on the record his admiration for those schools and his regret at his and his Department's clumsiness. I look forward to that; it would be a gracious acknowledgement that would do him great credit.

Michael Gove: I am outlining our approach, and the Secretary of State will have to wait until for a Division to be called when we will give him our position on that. Following all the interventions that hon. Gentlemen have been kind and wise enough to make, I am attempting to answer their points and to ensure that we have adequate debate. That is always my aim. The hon. Gentleman from the Government Whips Office just said that we had agreed to the programme motion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made clear, that was before the Government made a number of changes to today's business.  [ Interruption. ]

Michael Gove: Delighted, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	One of the central aspects of the admissions code covered by the new clause and amendments is the priority given to children who are in care—looked-after children. We agree that it is important that those children receive absolute priority in the admissions process.  [ Interruption. ] The Secretary of State says that they were not getting that. Let me refer him to evidence—something that was absent in much of his speech—from the London Diocesan Board for Schools. In his letter to the Secretary of State, Tom Peryer referred to the
	"public naming and shaming of schools"
	covered by the new clause in a
	"'score-sheet' handed out to journalists".
	He points out that that
	"would have been regrettable even if all the allegations"
	made by the Secretary of State and his Department
	"were true, but in a number of instances they were not."
	He goes on to give examples. Four schools in the London diocese were explicitly named by the Department as schools that failed to prioritise children in care correctly. Tom Peryer says that
	"therefore the impression given is that those C of E schools are heartless in turning away the most vulnerable. However, those four schools did prioritise children in care correctly. The officials checking the letter interpreted the fact that those schools included a statement seeking corroborating information from a local authority that a child was indeed in public care as a request for justification as to why the school was the most suitable. This is not the case and the charge of non-compliance rests on an erroneous interpretation of what the school statement said. If indeed their statements are against the code then local authorities should also be found guilty because the common application form for Barnet and for other local authorities in London also requires evidence from the relevant social worker/authority. A few of our schools have had requests or applications from relatives of children who"
	believe themselves to be
	"'looking after' a child for the child's parents"
	and believe that they would therefore be able to go to the top of the priority list. All that those schools were seeking to do was to be true to the spirit of the admissions code and to give proper priority to looked-after children. Yet those schools, in being true to their Christian mission, were named and shamed by the Secretary of State.
	I am afraid that the whole episode has been a deeply regrettable exercise on the part of the Secretary of State in seeking to put politics before policy. One of the welcome aspects of the amendments is their bolstering and strengthening of the role of the school adjudicator, given that the way in which the Secretary of State has used his powers causes Conservative Members great concern about whether he has the genuine best interests of the vulnerable most at heart.
	When we have an admissions code agreed by all parties, it is absolutely vital that its implementation should be as consensual and considerate as possible. The Secretary of State's approach to the existing admissions code earlier this year showed that it was an instrument that could not be trusted in his hands.
	We welcome some of the signs of contrition that the Government have shown in the way they have approached the matter. The article that the Secretary of State wrote in the  Jewish Chronicle and the visit that the Minister for Schools and Learners made to the Board of Deputies are acknowledgments that the issue was mishandled and required better handling. When the Secretary of State returns to the issue, it is important that he give us a fuller and better explanation of the way in which the admissions code will be framed in the future. In the new clauses we are debating and some of the subsequent amendments, the Secretary of State and his Ministers acknowledge that it is appropriate to consult on precise implementation of aspects of that code.
	One of the questions that concerns Jewish schools is that many of them have requested a ketubah, or marriage certificate, in order to ensure that those who are applying to that school are properly married in accordance with Jewish religious law. I understand why the admissions code is chary about asking for proof of marriage, for all sorts of entirely understandable reasons, which I shall not detain the House by going into now. It is important, however, that the Secretary of State makes it clear that he will be appropriately sensitive and recognise that it is legitimate for Jewish and other faith schools to ask for proof of religious commitment and membership of the appropriate religious community. I look forward to hearing that assurance on the Floor of the House.
	One of the other questions that has been raised by certain headmasters in connection with the admissions code and the new clauses is the way in which behaviour cannot be a determining factor when it comes to guaranteeing access to the sixth form of a particular school. One of the questions we would like elucidation on—I am not making the matter party political; we are curious because we are accurately reflecting, as we have done throughout the debate, the concerns of those who run good schools—is the Government's view on the concerns raised by headmasters, such as the headmaster of Hasmonean, and teachers about the way in which they might be compelled to accept children into sixth form whose behaviour has been less than it should be, particularly when the ethos of those schools matters so much to them. I know that the head teacher of Hasmonean has written to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools and Learners, so if he cannot give us detail now, perhaps it would be appropriate for him to provide elucidation at another point.
	There is another question relating to ethos. In response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, I defined "ethos" in my own way, but there was a specific objection from Ministers, in the context of the admissions code, to the use of the word "ethos" because they feared it could create a barrier in certain circumstances. Schools that believe that their distinctive religious ethos is central to their education mission need elucidation as to how it can be protected in the context of the schools adjudicator's new powers. All that would be helpful.
	Those are detailed questions that go to the heart of the admissions code, but I make them now because they are points I have been asked to raise by people who felt hurt and bruised by the process that the Secretary of State and his Department indulged in earlier. We have not had an opportunity to hold the Secretary of State to account for his behaviour during that period. Many in the communities affected have formed a judgment of his approach to their faith and their schools as a result of his actions. This debate provides the Secretary of State with an opportunity to apologise; I hope that he will have the grace to do so.

David Laws: I shall not speculate on the timing of the announcement of Government new clause 14 or the motives that informed it. I simply say that we are happy to support it and believe it necessary to address some of the unfair practices used in admissions over the years, which have been identified in many reports, including the Education and Skills Committee report three years ago.
	We have two concerns about admissions, which informed our attitude to not only new clause 14 but new clause 18, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friends. First, we want to ensure that pupils and parents can choose schools, so that schools are not choosing parents and pupils to select their way to better performance. We want to ensure that the consumer rather than the producer is in the driving seat, if I may put the matter that way without provoking any comment from those on the Benches behind me.
	We also seek to challenge the extraordinarily high levels of social segregation that remain in the school system, which the Secretary of State mentioned and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) would acknowledge. Some of those elements of social segregation exist because of schools' catchment areas and are difficult to address without using more complex admissions procedures and selective devices. However, where there are elements of unfair admissions that we can address, we surely should address them. Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is quite possible for schools in deprived catchment areas to perform well, even with the challenging youngsters they often have, he will know that the results in our school system are, generally speaking, driven by a school's social composition and its admissions practices.
	The hon. Member for Surrey Heath recently received a very interesting parliamentary answer, which I managed to steal from under his nose to use in some of the press coverage, so good was it. He asked the Secretary of State to break down the 600 or so schools that were failing to hit the Government's target of 30 per cent. five A*-C GCSEs, including English and maths, and to identify how many schools in each decile, according to deprivation, were failing to hit that target. The results were pretty astonishing, and they demonstrated what I assume the hon. Gentleman wanted them to demonstrate. They showed that 54 per cent. of schools in the most deprived decile failed to achieve the Government's target. I believe that the comparable figure in the top decile was 3 per cent., so we know that there are extraordinarily high levels of social deprivation in schools in this country, and we also know that they have a powerful impact on driving opportunities for young people.

Michael Gove: Purely for the benefit of the House, I would like say that I used to be chairman of Policy Exchange, but before it enjoyed its current level of success, which post-dated my departure. I did not write that report. Although it has many good things in it, it contains one or two recommendations that we do not endorse—and what the hon. Gentleman mentioned is one of them.

Paul Holmes: I welcome the thrust of what the Government are trying to achieve in new clause 14. I have been a member of what was the Education and Skills Committee and is now the Select Committee on Children, Families and Schools for nearly all the past seven years, and I played a small part in the writing of the 2004 report on admissions, which has been mentioned a number of times. The report helped to prompt the Government to improve admission procedures, which they now intend to improve further to prevent them from being exploited for purposes of covert selection.
	Over the years, partly as a result of our current inquiry into diversity in schools, the Select Committee has received copious academic research evidence on the effects of overt and covert selection and the way in which it boosts some schools at the expense of the majority. I disagree with the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who seemed to suggest that we should ignore all evidence of the negative effects of selection of various kinds and pretend that it makes no real difference, because what matters above all else is the ethos of the school. There is, of course, the ethos of the sink school. The most famous, of which everyone has heard, is the Ridings school.
	Someone who knows Halifax extremely well is Alice Mahon, who was Member of Parliament for Halifax until she retired at the 2005 election. Writing in the  Yorkshire Post in March, she pointed out that Halifax had eight secondary schools: two grammars that cream off the top 20, 30, or 40 per cent. of the ability range, two faith schools that select in a different way, and four "ordinary schools" to take the rest of the pupils. For whatever reason, over the years the Ridings fell to the bottom of the pecking order. Its ethos was that of the sink school. I know that that is not a term that we are encouraged to use nowadays, although it was in common usage when I started teaching in 1979, but that fact that it is frowned on does not alter the fact that such schools exist. There are schools that lose out badly because of the effects of both covert and overt selection. We see that on a county-wide basis in places such as Kent and Lincolnshire, where the grammar school system still reigns.
	Although new clause 14 is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough, for two reasons. First, it leaves academies out of the equation. That is why I support new clause 18, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), and why I tabled amendments (a) to (n) thereto, along with the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). I simply cannot understand why academies should be free to use covert methods of selection, some of which the Secretary of State described a few weeks ago when he talked about the abuse of admissions procedures, while other schools in the state system are not.

Paul Holmes: None the less, many people see a need to tighten up the system to make clear its absolute application to academies. I gave some examples earlier of the way in which they can play the system. I saw something similar in a free school in Stockholm, which is currently a favoured topic of conversation in some quarters. Although there is a ban on selective admission procedures in Sweden, those wishing to get into the school had to attend seven meetings with their parents—five in the evenings and two lasting throughout two Saturdays—before they could even put their names down. Pregnant mothers already had their unborn children's names on the waiting list for a school with "non-selective" intake policies. Some academies in this country have similar admissions procedures.
	I have never been able to understand why academies should be outside the system, just as I have never understood why they should enjoy freedom from Government diktat on curriculums. Why cannot state schools and their heads have the same freedom? I should like to give all state schools the same freedoms as academies, while also imposing on all schools the restrictions on abuse of admissions procedures proposed in new clause 14.
	The other reason why new clause 14 also does not go far enough is that it leaves out schools that select, directly and openly, on the basis of ability. That is why the hon. Member for Bury, North and I tabled new clauses 20, 21 and 22. Before anyone intervenes to ask, let me say that I am not speaking for the Liberal Democrats; my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil does that from the Front Bench, and those who have questions should address them to him. I am a mere Back Bencher, elected by my constituents to represent them, and I base my views on 22 years of working in three non-selective schools in the state system. I am also basing my views on having sent all three of my children to non-selective state schools in my neighbourhood in Chesterfield, as well as on having spent seven years on the Select Committee in both its incarnations, studying extensively the evidence in both this country and other countries.
	I thought—I say this with my tongue slightly in my cheek—that there was cross-party agreement on the insidious effects of selection by ability. The current admission arrangements in which the 11-plus operates, to which the new clause applies, determine a child's future at age 11 on the basis of a couple of short, simple tests that are no longer relevant to today's needs. They distort the primary school curriculum. Those who can afford to do so pay for extra coaching. They constitute a high-stakes process that puts unacceptable pressure and anxiety on pupils, parents and teachers. The result is a system that leaves the majority of pupils being perceived, and perceiving themselves, as failures at the age of 11. Also, rather than providing a ladder out of disadvantage, there is significant bias against the less well-off in the test results, which is compounded later in public examinations.
	"It is simply not right that a child's future should be determined at age 11, nor is it right to segregate children into two discrete groups at that age." —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 10 July 2006; Vol. 684, c. 544.]
	Before anyone asks, let me say that that is not me speaking; it is a direct quote from a Minister, Lord Rooker, on July 10 2006, when he introduced the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.

Stephen Ladyman: I just want to refer the hon. Gentleman to the research to which I earlier referred a Conservative Front-Bencher. Professor Jesson has compared the performance of cohorts going through the two distinct educational systems of selection and non-selection. He has clearly demonstrated that the brightest 2 or 3 per cent. do equally well in both systems—equally well, not better in the grammar school system—but that all the remaining children do on average one GCSE grade better in a comprehensive system than they do in a selective system, and that includes many of the very brightest.

David Chaytor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, but I would rather continue with my argument for the moment.
	The issue here is, what should be the underlying principle of a state secondary school system? Two points, above all, should be at the heart of that matter. There is now a consensus that we want parents to be able to choose schools, not schools to be able to choose parents. Unfortunately, the official Opposition have not worked through the logic of that statement, because they still support schools—wholly selective, partly selective, quasi-selective—choosing pupils.
	My argument is, first, let us agree that we really want parents to be able to choose schools and, secondly, let us accept that the fact that children are intellectually differentiated does not mean that they have to be socially segregated. It is in the interests of all those children and in the national interest that we do not build barriers at too early an age between children who come from different social backgrounds and who have different intellectual capacities.
	If we can accept that we want to base the system on real, not phoney, parental choice and that it is in the national interest that children of all backgrounds are brought up together, we can move forward. That leads us inexorably to the point of view that selection by ability in secondary schools is not serving the national interest or the interests of the overwhelming majority of children.
	Moving quickly and specifically to the amendments, I shall not spend long on new clause 18. Although I am sympathetic to the argument on selection by aptitude, and although in 2004 and afterwards I spent time trying to get the Government to define "aptitude", in one sense it is almost a distraction to focus entirely on aptitude. The new clause is also a contradiction in a way, but if the argument is that selection by aptitude should be abolished because "aptitude" is a proxy for "ability", why does the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), not deal with the question of selection by ability? I see little point in dealing with the proxy rather than the substance. My proposal deals with both together.
	My second point on new clause 18 is that it does not do the job in that it will not amend the existing legislation suitably and appropriately. It is a bit of gesture politics and it has served to raise the issue for debate, but it is not a serious proposal.
	My new clauses 19 to 22 offer a spectrum of ways to deal with the question of selection by ability. That spectrum goes from the easiest way—it would start the process of change—in new clause 19 to the big bang solution in new clause 22. New clause 19 would turn on its head the assumption that has underpinned all school admission policies since the Education Act 1980—since the days of Keith Joseph. For the last quarter of a century and more, the assumption that has driven all Government policy is that most parents want to avoid their local school.
	All Governments' admissions policies, all the incentives in the system and all the regulations have encouraged and made it easier for parents to send their children to other schools and move further away from their local school. We all know the background and context to that and we all know that a number of parents—not a majority, but a significant minority—do not wish, for whatever reason, their child to attend the local school.
	My argument is that there is an equally significant minority of parents who want their child to attend the nearest school, but they are not allowed in because that school is selective—either wholly or partially by ability, partially by aptitude, by faith or by a variety of quasi-selective devices. It seems to me that one of the easiest changes to the code of practice on school admissions and to primary legislation would be to guarantee that parents had an absolute right to send their child to the nearest school, whatever the designation of that school. We would be putting parental choice at the heart of the system and not allowing the specific admissions policies of an individual school to keep children who live on its doorstep out. That would have implications for wholly selective schools and for some of the partially selective schools, as well as for some faith schools. However—this is again a response to the shadow Secretary of State's opening remarks—all the major religious groups, as I understand it, are taking part in a lively debate about the balance between inclusive and exclusive admissions policies. In the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, many people at the most senior levels feel passionately that their faith schools should operate inclusive admissions policies rather than seek to keep children out. The debate will continue, and I hope that the Government will maintain a close dialogue with the major faith groups to encourage the adoption of more inclusive policies.
	New clause 19 is the ultimate inclusive policy and would allow a parent who lived near a selective school, which was their nearest school, to have the automatic right to send their child to that school.

Stephen Ladyman: My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, and he has been a doughty campaigner on the issue for many years, for which I pay tribute to him. I am concerned that if new clause 19 was accepted and new clause 20 was not, we would find that, in constituencies such as mine, all the middle-class parents who live close the middle-class schools could send their kids there while the working-class parents on the working class estates would essentially find themselves with no choice other than to send their child to the closest school, which was what used to be called a sink school.

David Chaytor: I will leave the exact number of signatures required and the exact rules of the ballot to the imagination, as there is no reference to them in new clause 20.
	New clause 21, moving along the spectrum, deals with the issue in a different way. Whereas in new clause 19 I tried to reverse the assumption that all parents want to avoid their local school by building in an assumption that many parents want their children to attend their nearest school, in new clause 21 I try to shift the focus of debate from the choice between selection and non-selection to the age at which selection takes place and the interface between selection and choice. New clause 21 reiterates the case that selection by ability is completely unacceptable, for the reasons outlined earlier, but says that there comes a point in the education system at which children have to choose which curriculum they will follow.
	Few people in the House would challenge the notion that selection takes place when people enter a university—there clearly has to be a selective process for a degree course. Many people would accept that there needs to be a form of selection at the age of 16, as people move on to level 3 education. An absolutely fascinating question concerns the implication of the emergence of the 14-to-19 curriculum and the development of diplomas for selection by ability. Another fascinating question concerns the role of an institution in choosing which pupils should be admitted to a diploma programme and the role of an individual pupil, with the support and advice of their teacher and their parent, in deciding which programme they want to progress to.
	New clause 21 reiterates the inappropriateness of selection by ability at the age of 11, but accepts that at a certain stage of a young person's progress through the system some selection takes place. It emphasises that it is far better if children and young people can choose the curriculum that they want to follow, on the advice of their teachers and parents, rather than having an arbitrary institutional decision made to keep them out of an educational establishment.
	Finally, new clause 22 is the big bang solution. It asks why on earth the Government do not just get on with it and legislate against selection by ability at the age of 11, as Harold Wilson did 42 years ago.

Nia Griffith: In proposing the amendment, I very much applaud the excellent work of Jane Hutt, the Assembly Minister for Education, Culture and Young People, and her colleagues in innovatively and imaginatively developing the 14-to-19 curriculum in Wales.
	I fully respect the power and responsibility that the Assembly has with regard to education, but my reason for proposing the amendment is quite simply to ensure that if the Welsh Assembly Government see the need to make the entitlement to education or training up until the age of 18 compulsory in future, they have the facility to do so without the need for primary legislation from the UK Government.
	Many excellent programmes in Wales to encourage young people to continue their education or training up until the age of 18 are being delivered largely through schools and colleges. The response of the National Training Federation for Wales to "Skills That Work for Wales" states that the Welsh Assembly should include 16 to 19-year-olds at work in the learning entitlement measure and should seriously consider taking reserve powers to introduce, if necessary, an obligation to learn along the lines of the English Bill. It says that such a reserve power could be useful in underpinning entitlement by prompting employers and young employees alike to engage voluntarily in and complete an appropriate qualification process. In the view of the NTFW, that would also encourage the completion of apprenticeships because non-completions have long been identified as a problem within the apprenticeship process.
	We all appreciate that, as far as we possibly can, we need to motivate young people to take up education and training opportunities up to the age of 18 of their own volition, but without repeating the many good reasons why the Bill will make that entitlement compulsory, I should like to highlight a couple of issues. First, one of the reasons for making entitlement up to the age of 18 compulsory is that authorities, particularly in difficult times, have to concentrate their resources on statutory provision. If a service is not statutory, it can be in danger of being starved of funding and under-resourced. Secondly, once the measures in the Bill come into force, making entitlement up to the age of 18 compulsory in England, there may be cross-border issues and unintended consequences that make compulsion desirable in Wales. I propose the amendment in order to ensure that that option will be open to the Welsh Assembly Government.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I rise to address amendment No. 149 and the Government amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) raised some important points about education in Wales that will have been heard, and which will be heard after the debate as well. If I may address the crux of the matter in amendment No. 149, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the Welsh Assembly Government should be able to decide to raise the participation age in Wales at some point in the future.
	The intention behind the amendment is laudable. It seeks to ensure that young people in England and Wales, who are above compulsory school age, under 18 and without a level 3 qualification, receive the undoubted benefits of education and training. That is a virtuous circle: as the young people receive the benefits of additional education and training, their communities, families and wider society also benefit. It is a classic "win-win" scenario. We want those benefits to accrue in England and Wales, to our constituents in Llanelli, Ogmore and elsewhere. Yet I hope that I can explain to my hon. Friend and the House that the amendment, while rightly probing the intentions of the Welsh Assembly Government and Westminster, is unnecessary.
	It may help if I put the amendment in context. The Welsh Assembly Government are fully committed to ensuring that as many young people as possible stay on in education or training until the age of 18. We have a shared aim of equipping more and more young people in the 14-19 range with the skills and abilities that they need to shape a successful future.
	The Welsh Assembly Government are putting in place their strategies to achieve that, focused on two key objectives to encourage participation. The first is extending the entitlement of young people to education and training generally, and the second is expanding the range of options available to them, through programmes such as 14-to-19 learning pathways and the Welsh baccalaureate—the Welsh bac.
	The Assembly Government have a long-standing endorsement of an approach that increases the obligation on providers of services to expand and improve the offers made to young people, and to make staying in education and training more attractive and worth while. They recently concluded a consultation exercise on a draft learning and skills measure, through which they intend to legislate to provide young people with a statutory entitlement to education and training during that period in their lives.
	I know that the Assembly Government are keen to work with us, sharing and learning from our different experiences as they plan their policies for the future. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners set out in Committee, we do not believe that those matters should be reduced to "either/or". Improving the range and quality of the offer to young people is essential, and raising the participation age can galvanise the system to do that.
	The Government of Wales Act 2006 allows the Assembly to acquire enhanced legislative powers through legislative competence orders—LCOs. If, based on the English experience, the Welsh Assembly Government decide to pursue the approach taken in England, they have the option of proposing a legislative competence order to seek powers to enable them to raise the participation age.
	In the meantime, we are working with the Assembly Government to ensure that the Bill is drafted in such a way that it enables all aspects of the policy to be capable of application in Wales in future, should they decide to pursue such an approach. However, if the amendment were accepted, it would apply the duty to participate and the rest of the provisions of part 1 in exactly the same form to Wales as to England. It would not allow flexibility to reflect different structures, provisions or qualifications in Wales. I therefore ask my hon. Friend to withdraw it, with the clear commitment of the Government and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to continue to work with the Welsh Assembly Government to ensure that the approach in England could be adopted if required and requested, and in the light of our shared aim of equipping young people with the skills and abilities for a successful future.
	I hope that I will not detain us long on Government amendments Nos. 113 to 118. The Bill contains framework powers for the National Assembly for Wales to legislate on regulation and inspection. The amendments would alter those powers so that they more comprehensively cover the regulation of the independent sector. That would avoid the position whereby Westminster regulates some parts of the sector and the Government in Wales regulate others.
	Clause 133 enables the National Assembly for Wales to legislate on the arrangements for the registration and regulation of independent schools in the context of educational provision and, more generally, of pupil welfare. The framework provision also confers power on the Assembly to introduce measures on the inspection of maintained schools for children of or below compulsory school age, and other education and training for those aged 16 and under, as well as the inspection of independent schools and education and training provided other than in a school to those of compulsory school age.
	The amendments would extend the framework power to enable the National Assembly to regulate independent nursery schools and part-time educational training provided at independent educational institutions, which provide education for one or more pupils of compulsory school age. That will ensure that the power is comprehensive in giving the Assembly the ability to legislate on regulation in the independent sector.
	I ask hon. Members to support the Government amendments.

John Hayes: I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. I presume that the reasoning behind the unwillingness to take an "either/or" route is that one some occasions the Government would deem it appropriate and desirable to have a broader debate about a subject. That was the argument used last time around. However, I am mindful that the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs said:
	"We are concerned that continuing to use primary legislation to extend the powers of the National Assembly (in a parallel procedure to adding Matters by way of Legislative Competence Orders) will mean that Matters introduced in this way will escape the detailed arrangements for pre-legislative scrutiny".
	The other point that the Minister might want to intervene to clarify is that pre-legislative scrutiny will form a key part of future legislation and has formed a key part of this legislation.

John Hayes: I am again grateful to the Minister. Mindful that we have many other matters to debate in the short time available and not wishing to test the House's patience beyond reasonable limits—or, indeed, yours, Madam Deputy Speaker—I draw my remarks to a close by merely saying that the Government have learnt their lesson and are improving, in respect of the application of their measures in the Principality of Wales.

Hywel Williams: Further to the point that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) made, I, too, will keep my remarks brief. However, there is good reason to consider education and amendment No. 149 in detail.
	Education is a devolved matter and has been so for a long time, if to varying degrees. Wales has a long educational tradition that is both radical and different from that in England. I am glad to have this opportunity to mention Griffith Jones Llanddowror and Robert Jones Rhoslan, who in the 18th century ensured that 158,000 Welsh people were literate, long before such a position obtained in England. Then we had the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, which provided that public money should be spent on Welsh intermediate education—that is, that education should be paid for from the rates, again long before that was the case in England.
	In recent decades we have seen other specifically Welsh developments, including the continuing success of Welsh medium education, the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988, which the Conservatives introduced, in respect of language, the deletion of burdensome SATs, the Welsh baccalaureate and now the foundation stage for early education. Furthermore, as has been mentioned, field 5 of schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act 2006, on "education and training", sets out 17 separate matters—more matters than any other field. They range from matter 1, the categories of schools to be maintained, to matter 17, education and training for those with learning and other difficulties. Clearly the Assembly has been judged to be competent in respect of education—all the more reason, therefore, not to pursue the amendment. Whether a further legislative competence order will be required is another matter.
	There is, however, more to the situation. Historically, there has been a long series of clashes between the champions of distinct Welsh education provision and London Departments. There was a time when such clashes were between the popular representatives of the people—that is, the politicians—and the Administration here in London, with their murkier motives and strategies. The amendment might—or might not—be one further example of that historic clash. Since the advent of formal democratic devolution, however, there is the potential for a further clash, as has been mentioned. That clash is not between the people of Wales and the machine of Government, but between democratically elected representatives of the people of Wales here in London and democratically elected representatives in Wales. I do not know whether this debate is a clash of that sort, but as a Plaid Cymru MP, I know precisely where I stand on the matter, following the legislation to which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred. To cut to the argument, I would ask one question: is the amendment really needed? If not, it should be rejected.
	Education is the main plank of the One Wales agreement for government between the Labour party and Plaid Cymru. That agreement sets out principles that the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) would scarcely argue against. For example, section 6, on "Learning for Life", says:
	"Our vision is of a society in which learning throughout life is the norm".
	The agreement continues by saying that
	"our unwavering commitment is to give the children of Wales the best start in life, through providing a first-class education for all children, whatever their social origins or wherever they live."
	In the section on establishing a right to learn, the One Wales agreement says:
	"We will provide a government-guaranteed right, backed up with new money, to education and accredited training until the age of eighteen, including a broader-based baccalaureate, incorporating vocational and academic learning opportunities, with a legislative framework."
	The intention behind the One Wales document of the Government in Cardiff could scarcely be clearer.
	The real question is whether the Welsh Assembly Government are to be trusted to implement their own policy. If they want to pursue a policy of compulsion, are they to be trusted to apply for a legislative competence order, should one be needed? Speaking for Plaid Cymru, I am glad to give that assurance. I would not presume to speak for the Labour party or the Government in Cardiff as a whole. However, as I have argued, the weight of our educational history suggests that we will take the radical course in Wales, not least because the provision of education and training up to the age of 18 is part of the binding agreement between the two great radical parties that now form the Government in Wales.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	New clause 9— Learning and support contracts (No. 2)
	'(1) This section applies where a person to whom this Part applies ("the young person") is failing to fulfil the duty imposed by section 2.
	(2) A local education authority in England may enter into a learning and support contract with a young person—
	(a) if the young person is resident in that authority's area; and
	(b) the authority considers that entering into the learning and support contract would be desirable in the interests of the young person's fulfilment of that duty.
	(3) A learning and support contract is a document which contains—
	(a) a statement by the young person that the young person agrees to comply with such requirements as may be specified in the document for such period as so may be specified; and
	(b) a statement by the local education authority that it agrees to provide support to the young person for the purpose of complying with those requirements.
	(4) A learning and support contract must be signed by the young person, and signed on behalf of the local education authority.
	(5) A learning and support contract does not create any obligations in respect of whose breach any liability arises in contract or tort.'.
	New clause 13— Annual consultation with employers' organisations
	'On each anniversary of the coming into force of Chapter 3 of Part 1 of this Act, the Secretary of State shall consult—
	(a) the Confederation of British Industry,
	(b) the Institute of Directors,
	(c) the British Chambers of Commerce, and
	(d) the Federation of Small Businesses,
	to assess the effect the provisions in this Chapter have had in the previous twelve months, on the employment market for 16 and 17 year old people.'.
	New clause 23— Participation in vocational education
	'(1) A pupil who has completed three years of secondary education may leave school in order to pursue full-time vocational education elsewhere if the conditions in subsection (2) are satisfied.
	(2) Those conditions are that the pupil—
	(a) has the written permission of their parent or guardian not to continue in full-time education at school;
	(b) has the written permission of the head teacher of the school at which they are registered as a pupil not to continue in full-time education at school; and
	(c) has achieved level 5 at key stage 3 in English, mathematics and science.'.
	No. 45, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, at beginning insert—
	'(1) This Part does not apply to any person who—
	(a) has full time learning responsibilities for a parent, sibling or other relation,
	(b) is a parent of a child under the age of 5,
	(c) is engaged in full time voluntary work,
	(d) has an illness requiring significant medical attention, or
	(e) has a terminal illness.'.
	No. 43, page 1, line 7, leave out 'is resident' and insert 'lives'.
	No. 44, page 1, line 7, leave out 'is resident' and insert 'currently resides'.
	No. 42, page 1, line 7, leave out 'resident'.
	No. 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert ', and
	(d) is not engaged in full-time sport or on a sporting apprenticeship.'.
	No. 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert ', and
	(d) has not written to the relevant local authority to request that their education and training entitlement under section 2 should be delayed until a specified future date.'.
	No. 3, page 1, line 10, at end insert ', and
	(d) is not engaged in voluntary activity for more than 20 hours per week.'.
	No. 4, page 1, line 10, at end insert ', and
	(d) is not a parent of a child who is aged 1 year or less.'.
	No. 8, in clause 2, page 1, line 12, leave out from 'applies' to end of line 3 on page 2 and insert
	'shall be entitled to 2 years of free education or training up to level 3, to be taken at any time after leaving education at the present compulsory school leaving age.'.
	No. 7, page 1, line 17, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
	'(c) be in full-time occupation (see section 5).'.
	No. 5, page 2, line 3, at end insert ', or
	(d) have signed and be participating in a learning and support contract entered into with a local education authority to provide personalised support leading to future participation in accredited education or training.'.
	No. 6, page 2, line 3, at end insert ', or
	(d) be in receipt of full-time non-educational support.'.
	No. 9, page 2, line 11, at end insert—
	'(3) This section may not come into force until the Secretary of State has published an assessment of the availability of suitable education and training opportunities in each local authority area.'.
	No. 46, page 2, line 11, at end insert—
	'(3) This section may not come into force until 90 per cent. of 16 and 17 year olds are, as certified by the Statistics Commission, participating in education or training.'.
	No. 47, page 2, line 11, at end insert—
	'(3) This section may not come into force until the Learning and Skills Council has certified that in its opinion there are sufficient contracts of apprenticeship of suitable quality available to meet the level of demand by persons to whom this Part applies.'.
	No. 48, in clause 3, page 2, line 18, after 'two', insert 'knowledge-based'.
	No. 11, in clause 4, page 2, line 32, after 'ability', insert ', interests'.
	No. 10, page 2, leave out lines 34 and 35.
	No. 49, page 2, line 35, after 'sector', insert ', at home'.
	No. 50, page 2, line 35, after 'sector', insert ', in the workplace'.
	No. 12, page 2, line 41, at end insert—
	'(4) Regulations must provide for "appropriate full-time education or training" which—
	(a) is not in formal educational institutions,
	(b) is not accredited,
	(c) includes personalised support for non-educational needs.'.
	No. 13, in clause 6, page 4, line 6, leave out from 'Part' to end of line 7 and insert
	'training or education in relation to any person to whom this Part applies shall be regarded as "relevant" if and only if it is—
	(a) training or education towards an accredited qualification provided by a course or courses, or
	(b) in-house training provided by an employer, or
	(c) training or education which, if the person concerned were participating in full time education or training, would be considered appropriate having regard to the person's age, ability, interests and aptitude, and any learning difficulties which the person may have.'.
	No. 51, page 4, line 7, at end insert
	'or in-house training provided by an employer in the course of full-time employment.'.
	No. 41, in clause 8, page 4, line 28, leave out from 'it' to end of line 39 and insert—
	'(a) amounts in aggregate to at least 280 hours of guided learning, in the case of a relevant period which is one year;
	(b) amounts in aggregate to such number of hours of guided learning as is determined in accordance with regulations, in the case of any other relevant period; or
	(c) is designed to lead within a year to credits with a value equivalent to the credit value normally attached to qualifications estimated to require 280 hours of guided learning by the QCA or other accrediting bodies whose functions and qualifications are recognised by the European Credit Framework.'.
	No. 30, page 4, line 29, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 31, page 4, line 31, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 32, page 4, line 34, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 33, page 4, line 35, leave out 'actual guided'.
	No. 34, page 4, line 39, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 35, page 4, line 42, leave out 'actual guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 36, page 5, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert 'or
	(c) in any unsupervised preparation or study, whether at home or otherwise, which a person is expected by the lecturer, tutor, teacher or other appropriate provider to take to complete the learning outcomes of a qualification or part of a qualification.'.
	No. 37, in clause 9, page 5, line 15, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 38, page 5, line 21, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 39, page 5, line 26, leave out 'guided learning' and insert 'learning time'.
	No. 40, page 5, leave out lines 34 and 35 and insert 'or
	(c) on unsupervised preparation or study, whether at home or otherwise, where this work is allocated by a lecturer, tutor, supervisor or other appropriate provider of training or education.'.
	No. 29, in clause 10, page 6, line 2, at end insert—
	'(2) This duty applies to all such persons under the supervision of the local authority youth offending team, including those in custody.'.
	No. 54, in clause 14, page 8, line 8, leave out from 'to' to end of line 9 and insert
	'provide advice in relation to careers, education or training.'.
	No. 59, page 8, line 9, leave out 'Part' and insert 'Chapter'.
	No. 16, page 8, line 13, at end insert
	'which relates directly to the pupil or student's educational record, and educational and support needs.'.
	No. 57, page 8, line 15, leave out 'if' and insert 'unless'.
	No. 58, page 8, line 20, leave out 'not'.
	No. 55, page 8, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4A) An educational institution shall, at the beginning of each academic year, write to every student attending its institution informing them of their rights under subsection (4).'.
	No. 56, page 8, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4A) Information supplied under this section may not be used by a local education authority for the purpose of enforcing the duty to participate in education or training under the provision of Chapter 5 of this Part.'.
	No. 60, in clause 15, page 8, line 27, leave out 'exercise its functions under this Part' and insert
	'provide advice in relation to careers, education or training'.
	No. 62, page 8, line 27, leave out 'Part' and insert 'Chapter'.
	No. 61, page 9, line 18, at end insert—
	'(8) Information supplied under this section may not be used by a local education authority for the purposes of enforcing the duty to participate in education or training under the provisions of Chapter 5 of this Part.'.
	No. 18, in clause 16, page 9, line 21, after 'person', insert
	'whose written consent for this supply of information has been sought and given.'.
	No. 63, page 9, line 22, leave out 'exercise its functions under this Part' and insert
	'provide advice in relation to careers, education or training'.
	No. 17, page 9, line 22, after 'functions', insert 'solely in relation to providing support.'.
	No. 65, page 9, line 23, leave out 'Part' and insert 'Chapter'.
	No. 66, page 9, line 31, at end insert—
	'(2A) Within seven days of supplying information the persons and bodies listed in subsection (2) must be inform the person about whom they are supplying information that such information has been supplied to a local education authority.'.
	No. 64, page 9, line 36, at end insert—
	'(4) Information supplied under this section may not be used by a local education authority for the purposes of enforcing the duty to participate in education or training under the provisions of Chapter 5 of this Part.'.
	No. 67, in clause 17, in page 10, line 5, leave out 'for any relevant purpose' and insert
	'only to provide advice in relation to careers education or training'.
	No. 68, page 10, line 12, at end insert—
	'(6A) Information supplied under this section may not be used by a local education authority for the purpose of enforcing the duty to participate in education or training under the provisions of Chapter 5 of this Part.'.
	No. 69, page 10, line 22, leave out 'Part' and insert 'Chapter'.
	No. 19, in clause 21, page 11, line 37, leave out from 'applies' to end of line 11 on page 12 and insert
	'who has not either attained a level 3 qualification or who is not in certified or in-house education or training.'.
	No. 70, page 12, line 13, at end insert—
	'(4) For the purposes of this section, the steps that an employer is expected to take to fulfil its obligations in subsection (1) shall not include contacting a college of further education to verify—
	(a) that the young person is enrolled,
	(b) that the young person is attending courses, or
	(c) the number of hours of attendance the young person's course requires.'.
	No. 71, in clause 34, page 19, line 16, at end insert—
	'(7) The provisions of this section shall not come into force until the recommendations of the review of the national strategy for carers have been implemented.'.
	No. 72, in clause 39, page 22, line 8, at end insert—
	'(7A) In this section, "reasonable excuse" includes circumstances in which a young person—
	(a) is homeless,
	(b) has health problems, including temporary illness, long term disability or ongoing mental health issues,
	(c) has addiction problems,
	(d) has secured a place on a course which does not start until the following month or the following term,
	(e) is recovering from giving birth,
	(f) has caring responsibilities, or
	(g) has particular learning difficulties for which support has not been put in place.'.
	No. 73, in clause 40, page 22, line 17, leave out 'and'.
	No. 74, page 22, line 20, at end insert 'and
	(d) all other measures have been undertaken by the local authority to encourage the young person to fulfil the duty imposed by section 2.'.
	Government amendment No. 100
	Amendment No. 22, in clause 41, page 23, line 23, at end insert
	', having regard to a person's age, ability, interests, aptitudes and needs (if any) for personalised support and personalised learning opportunities.'.
	Amendment No. 75, page 23, line 23, at end insert—
	', having regard to a person's ability, prior educational attainment and special educational needs.'.
	Amendment No. 76, page 23, line 23, at end insert—
	', having regard to a person's needs and circumstances.'.
	Amendment No. 78, in clause 42, page 23, line 37, leave out second 'a' and insert 'an independent'.
	Amendment No. 77, page 23, line 37, after 'panel' insert 'of three people'.
	Amendment No. 23, page 23, line 38, at end insert—
	'(1A) The regulations shall provide for a duty on local authorities to make available independent advocacy services for those young people who would benefit from such services.'.
	Amendment No. 79, page 24, line 7, leave out 'chairs' and insert 'is a member of'.
	Amendment No. 80, page 24, line 7, after 'member' insert 'or employee'.
	Amendment No. 20, in clause 43, page 24, line 29, at end insert—
	'(4) In considering an appeal the attendance panel must invite the young person who is appealing against the attendance notice, or the young person's nominated representative, to make representations to it.'.
	Amendment No. 81, page 24, line 29, at end insert—
	'(4) Regulations made under subsection (3) shall provide that a young person making an appeal may attend the attendance panel appeal hearing and, if they wish, may be accompanied by an advocate or friend.'.
	Amendment No. 24, in clause 45, page 25, line 19, at end insert—
	'(2A) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) to show that he or she is—
	(a) in treatment for a serious medical condition,
	(b) terminally ill,
	(c) caring for a family member who is seriously ill, or
	(d) unlikely to benefit from the education, training or service offered.'.
	Amendment No. 25, in page 25, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4) No offence under this section will have to be disclosed by a person who is convicted of the offence of failing to comply with an attendance notice.'.
	Amendment No. 82, in page 25, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4) A conviction under this section shall be regarded as spent on the date the young person convicted of such an offence reaches the age of 18.'.
	Amendment No. 83, in page 25, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4) A conviction under this section shall not be—
	'(a) a recordable offence under the National Police Records (Recordable Offences) Regulations 2000 (S.I 2000/1139), and
	(b) disclosed in Criminal Records Bureau checks.'.
	Amendment No. 84, in page 25, line 21, at end insert—
	'(4) A conviction under this section shall be regarded as spent after 12 months.'.
	Government amendment No. 105
	Amendment No. 85, in clause 46, page 26, line 3, after '45', insert 'and an advocate or friend'.
	Amendment No. 86, in clause 47, page 26, line 15, after 'notice' insert 'for the payment of £50'.
	Amendment No. 26, page 26, line 28, at end insert
	', provided that such penalty does not exceed £50 or the weekly amount of maximum educational maintenance allowance.'.
	Amendment No. 21, in clause 48, page 27, line 19, at end insert—
	'(4) In considering an appeal the attendance panel must invite the young person who is appealing against the penalty notice, or the young person's nominated representative, to make representations to it.'.
	Amendment No. 87, in page 27, line 19, at end insert—
	'(4) Regulations made under subsection (3) shall provide that a young person making an appeal may attend the attendance panel appeal hearing and, if they wish, may be accompanied by an advocate or friend.'.
	Amendment No. 88, in clause 54, page 30, line 7, leave out 'services' and insert
	'information, advice and guidance about education and career opportunities'.
	Amendment No. 89, page 30, line 9, at end insert—
	'(1A) Services made available under subsection (1) shall be appropriate to the needs of the young person, including those young people with special educational needs.'.
	Amendment No. 152, in clause 59, page 33, line 16, at end insert—
	'(c) the provision, in response to requests by young persons and relevant young adults with visual impairment, of text books and educational course materials, capable of enlargement and enhancement by electronic means.'.
	Amendment No. 150, in clause 67, page 39, line 26, after 'includes', insert 'workplace based'.
	Amendment No. 151, page 39, line 30, after 'includes', insert 'workplace based'.
	Amendment No. 91, in clause 68, page 40, line 8, at end insert—
	'(2) The Secretary of State shall commission an independent review into the effectiveness of the transport arrangements of local authorities, schools and colleges resulting from the entitlement to study each of the diploma lines.'.
	Amendment No. 92, page 40, line 8, at end insert—
	'(2) This section may not come into force before the Secretary of State has published the research conducted by York Consulting into the transport needs arising from the introduction of diplomas.'.

John Hayes: I rise to speak to this enormous group of amendments, mindful that the time in which to do so is very short indeed. I therefore hope that the House will forgive me if I focus on just some of the amendments, rather than try to deal with them all in detail.
	New clause 6 would introduce learning support contracts, where the young person concerned is failing to fulfil the duty imposed by clause 2. Learning support contracts are modelled on the parenting contracts in clause 34. A learning support contract would contain a statement by the young person that they agreed to comply with such requirements as may be specified in the document and a statement by the local education authority that it agreed to provide support to the young person for the purposes of complying with those requirements. Parents and carers would also be involved unless the young person was living independently.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) and I made clear during the earlier stages of the Bill, Conservatives believe that a learning support contract should always be considered before an attendance notice is issued. By amending clause 39(5)(b), and providing a mechanism for intervening earlier, before—and, ideally, instead of—the enforcement process, our desire is to minimise the chance of enforcement proceedings taking place, because of the damaging effect that they can have on a young person's prospects. I accept that there is a desire shared across the Chamber to encourage participation by as many post-16-year-olds as possible, but I do not think that anyone wants to see young people being prosecuted. The new clause would help to avoid that possibility.
	Time and again, we heard in evidence sessions that young people could be criminalised by the Bill. That is a great concern not only to the young people but to many of the organisations that work with the most disadvantaged members of our society. As compassionate Conservatives, we make no apology for allocating a disproportionate degree of concern, energy and intellectual capital to the defence of the most vulnerable people in our land. The experience of those who deal with young people—particularly with disengaged and troubled young people—was made clear by their evidence. They believe that, if those young people were stigmatised or criminalised, they could become entirely disengaged and impossible to re-engage.
	For example, we heard from Martina Milburn, the chief executive of the Prince's Trust, who told us that
	"the bulk of the 40,000 people who we worked with last year had issues with drugs and alcohol. What do you do with a young person who is already going down the path of taking too many drugs and drinking too much...The question is how you deal with that. Do you increasingly criminalise young people and just say, 'Right, we're going to lock you all up,' or do you find some way of trying to reach them and sort out some of their issues?"——[ Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 16, Q36.]
	That evidence graphically illustrates that the young people in the greatest need are the least likely to benefit from a Bill that coerces them and, ultimately, if they do not abide by their duties, criminalises them. Hence our attempt at this juncture to soften the impact of the part of the Bill that might do just that, by building in an additional protection for those vulnerable young people. The Association of School and College Leaders said in its briefing on the Bill that its preferred approach to achieving full participation was by persuasion rather than by coercion.
	There is no lack of commitment among those on the Conservative Benches to the principle of increasing the participation of post-16-year-olds in education. Indeed, we regard ourselves as being at the forefront of that campaign. However, we believe that we are most likely to achieve that by inspiring, by encouraging, by moving the hearts and minds of young people, rather than by coercion.
	Early intervention has long been an aspiration in the delivery of services for children and young people—

John Hayes: The Minister is encouraging me to be rather more critical of him than I would instinctively choose to be. However, because he has encouraged me, let me say that, when we debated the Bill in Committee, he made it clear that he believed that the vast majority of young people—including many who are disengaged—could be re-engaged not by compulsion but by the quality of the offer that the Government would seductively put before them. Furthermore, when I scrutinised his remarks closely, he acknowledged that there would always be a certain number of young people who would truant. We know that because, of the people who are currently obliged to attend school or college up to the age of 16, a proportion do not do so. We do not succeed in getting a 100 per cent. of those who are legally obliged to go to school or college to do so.
	The question that I put to the Minister then—I put it to him again now; perhaps he will intervene on me to answer it—was as follows, given that he thinks that about 90 per cent. of young people might be encouraged to participate post-16, and that about 5 or 6 per cent. of young people do not attend school, is he suggesting that coercion will affect only about 4 or 5 per cent. of young people? I am simply more ambitious and more positive, and less sceptical and cynical, than he is about our capacity to engage people without coercion.

Philip Davies: Following that theme, I know that my hon. Friend is cantering through a large number of amendments, but will he comment briefly on my new clause 23, which encourages a more "horses for courses" approach to education whereby people can leave the academic field and opt for a vocational education from the age of 14, provided that they have parental permission, a head teacher's approval and that they have reached level 5 at key stage 3 in English, maths and science. Does my hon. Friend agree that allowing children to go down a vocational—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief. The hon. Member may lucky enough to catch my eye later in the debate.

John Hayes: Perhaps there is another lunch in the offing.
	Amendment No. 70 and new clause 13 deal with duties on employers. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, clause 21 places a duty on employers not to employ a person unless they have taken reasonable steps to check that the person has made "appropriate arrangements" to participate in relevant training or education. The explanatory notes state that if an employer does not fulfil his duty under clause 21, clause 22
	"provides for a local education authority to serve a penalty notice on the employer and sets out the circumstances in which the notice can be given."
	We had an interesting debate in Committee about the burden these duties will place on employers. Particularly pertinent to that debate was the evidence offered by Professor Alison Wolf of King's college, London. She told the Committee during an early evidence session that in her estimation,
	"the negative impact that the Bill will have, by effectively destroying the labour market of 16 and 17-year-olds, is enormously underestimated. That might be justified if one were confident that they were going to be doing something that was extremely valuable. Since one is not, and since we know that on-the-job experience is demonstrably extremely valuable to people, I think we have to take the impact on the job market extremely seriously. I think the effect will be very serious and almost totally negative."
	The cost of employer checking is much higher in the Institute of Directors' estimation than the Government assume. The IOD says:
	"Government figures estimate that the process of employer checking is a single exchange of paper between an employee and employer which will take ten minutes"
	and therefore cost approximately £16.8 million nationally. It continues:
	"In reality this process will actually require a mixture of discussion, checking, altering of work rotas and/or addressing employees' needs."
	The IOD projects that it will cost more than double the figure suggested by the Government. The top estimate is that it could cost up to £68 million a year. The administrative burden also accounts for what it calculates to be a 32 per cent. hike in the Department's imposition on business. That is entirely contrary to the Government's policy, articulated by the Minister, of reducing the administrative burden on businesses by 25 per cent. The consequential unintended impact of the clause could be the employers employ only people who are older than the proposed compulsory age—precisely the argument of Professor Wolf and others.
	That problem may be especially profound in respect of small and medium-sized businesses. I suspect that the very large organisations, as so often with bureaucratic and administrative burdens, have the capacity to absorb the extra costs in a way that small businesses simply do not. For example, a small training business that employs a 17-year-old to work in numerous different jobs will spend less time on tasks such as marketing and business and more on burdensome administration. It is therefore important to review the impact of the clause after 12 months. We must find out whether the Ministry is right and the Government's estimates are borne out or whether the IOD and Professor Wolf are more accurate in their estimation of the detrimental effects of the employment of young people on the costs of businesses in respect of checking their new obligations.
	We debated these issues in earlier stages of our consideration. In response to these concerns, the Minister for Schools and Learners sought to reassure the Committee by saying that
	"if employers want to take on a young person for more than 20 hours a week in a situation when they are not providing their own accredited training, the young person will need to provide evidence that they have made arrangements to attend training or education before they can start employment. The employer will simply need to check that before allowing the employment to begin. If he does not, he will be failing to meet his duty. Employers will not be required to do anything further, such as calling the college to check that the young person has enrolled there; nor would they have an ongoing duty to check that they were attending the course...employers would not have to check the number of hours"  ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 19 February 2008; c. 556.]
	Our amendment No. 70 would put those assurance on the face of the Bill. Once again, we merely attempt to improve the Bill as a responsible Opposition should, given that we agree with the basic premise that we want as many 16, 17 and 18-year-olds to be involved in education and training as possible. By building those assurances into the Bill, we hope to limit the damage that the legislation might otherwise do to youth employment and to costs faced by businesses, particularly small businesses. That is also why we tabled new clause 13, which requires the Government to consult the CBI and the IOD as well as the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses in order to assess the effect that duties on employers have had in 12 months time and similarly the impact of the provisions on the employment market for 16 and 17-year-olds. It is absolutely right that we take a raincheck by making a judgment about the Bill's effect over time. That is what a responsible Government would do; it is what a responsible Secretary of State would want; so, once again, I cannot imagine that the Government will not embrace these suggestions—these amendments and new clauses—with relish. In Committee there was some dispute about the length of time it will take for employers to check whether the young people they employ are fulfilling their duties under legislation. In particular, there was a difference between the burden estimated by the Minister and, as I said, the much greater burden estimated by the IOD.
	Amendment No. 88—an important amendment, in our estimation—would amend clause 54. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton spoke about the importance of getting young people the right careers advice when we debated the matter in Committee. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is my considered view that it is critical, if we are to engage young people, that they are given appropriate guidance, so that they understand the merits of the various training and education options that confront them. I think that that will be best done by an all-age careers service, such as the ones that exist in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government do not currently agree, although I suspect that they might come round to our view over time. Our amendment is designed to clarify the functions of local authorities under clause 54. At the end of the day, the success of efforts to increase participation will be dependent, as Conservative Members have argued repeatedly, on inspiring young people with a new thirst for learning. Well-directed advice and guidance will play a vital role in that.
	In Committee, the Minister did not, by contrast, inspire any confidence that the current deficiencies of the Connexions service will be corrected as the service is transferred to local authority control. We support the work that Connexions does with troubled young people. It does an excellent job for that minority of young people with particular difficulties, but it is a Jack-of-all-trades. It is expected to do a great deal—to be an expert on sexual health advice and drugs issues, as well as on careers. Surely a dedicated service, sitting alongside Connexions, would do the job better.
	Back in 1997, the Dearing report concluded that good careers advice and guidance was essential to expanding participation in higher education. Lord Dearing recommended that careers advice should be integrated to form a single "lifelong guidance service", but the Government decided to fragment rather than to integrate careers advice, and abolished the careers service for young people and replaced it with Connexions, which has many jobs to do, as I said. That lack of focus has surely been damaging.
	In the joint memorandum on the Bill, all the main organisations involved in career guidance, including the National Association of Connexions Partners and the Institute of Career Guidance, expressed the concern that the local authority duty under the Bill are "not specific enough". It went on to state:
	"Effective participation requires assistance with choices. Such advice and guidance must be about choices not merely of which learning option to follow, but why",
	and that there must be clear progression beyond the age of 18
	"into employment (either directly or via further training or higher education). The key is that choices about the relationship between learning and work—i.e. about career—should drive participation in learning."
	This business of high-quality advice and guidance is surely critical to the success of the Bill. Our amendment would place a clear duty on local authorities to provide such services, and it does so by placing that duty on the face of the Bill.
	Incredibly, there is no mention of careers advice in any of the four core functions of Connexions specified by the Minister in a letter to the Committee dated 8 May. Rather, it states that the information, advice and guidance given to young people should help them make
	"positive choices about learning, raise their aspirations, equip them to make safe and informed health and lifestyle choices."
	It addresses none of the concerns raised by careers professionals. If the Minister agrees that effective participation is dependent on proper advice and guidance, he should once again take the sound advice of careers professionals, listen to the people at the sharp end, and support our amendment.
	I could speak at length about some of the other new clauses and amendments in this immense group. I could discuss, for instance, issues relating to the restricting of information and the right of students to own information, information-sharing, and sensitive data not being used to force participation. There are also real concerns about whether the current methods of storing information are fit for purpose—concerns that were raised with us during our evidence sessions by the Association of Colleges, which felt that the current Connexions database was not the best tool and was not adequate to perform the job that we expected of it under the new legislation.
	Those matters are important, but as time forbids me to explore them in the depth that the House deserves, I shall restrict myself to dealing with amendment No. 72. The amendment would enable clause 39 to define a "reasonable excuse" for non-participation. It would include
	"circumstances in which a young person—
	(a) is homeless,
	(b) has health problems, including temporary illness, long term disability or ongoing mental health issues,
	(c) has addiction problems,
	(d) has secured a place on a course which does not start until the following month or the following term,
	(e) is recovering from giving birth".
	The background to the amendment is a discussion of the meaning of "reasonable excuse" during the Committee's evidence session on Tuesday 29 January. The Minister undertook to write to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) outlining in more detail what would constitute a reasonable excuse under the Bill. Our amendment reiterates the circumstances outlined by the Minister in his letter of 1 February. We accept that, as the Minister said in his letter, the list is not exhaustive, but given that non-compliance with the Bill could ultimately result in a fine and a criminal record, we do not think it good enough for what is meant by "reasonable excuse" to be specified merely by guidance to local authorities. We think that it should be stated in the Bill, so that there is more clarity and confidence in relation to the enforcement process.
	Our desire throughout has been to protect the interests of young people, particularly vulnerable young people. The Minister said in his letter that it would be up to local authorities to interpret the concept of a reasonable excuse. There is a real danger of inconsistency between local authorities, and a consequent danger that the enforcement process will vary according to where people live. That would surely not be in line with the Government's ambitions and policies.
	I will end my speech now, so that the Secretary of State has time to respond. He will know that many of the organisations that have expressed anxieties about the Bill support our new clauses and amendments. Organisations such as Rainer, the Prince's Trust and Barnardo's seek to amend the Bill in precisely the way that I have described. In that spirit, I expect the Secretary of State, with alacrity and with some style, to accept the arguments that I have advanced.

Edward Balls: I shall speak to Government amendments Nos. 100 and 105, and try to respond to as many points as possible. I want particularly to focus on new clauses 6 and 9, but before I do so, may I say to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that I very much understand the points that he makes? The work that we are doing on studio schools and alternative provision deals precisely with the issues that he raises. All the powers that we need to provide vocational opportunities outside the school setting are already in place—we do not need new legislation—but I would be happy to ensure that he receives detailed briefing on that matter as we move towards our alternative provision White Paper.
	A number of other detailed issues were discussed at length in Committee. I know that because I have been told as much by my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners, who described to me the length of the Committee debates. He seems to have managed to organise today's business to reveal to me just how lengthy the debates were; he has ensured that I have dealt with all today's debates rather than him, although he will get an opportunity on Third Reading.
	On amendment No. 29, I can reassure the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) that young people in custody will not be excluded from the Bill's provision and that we will ensure that their needs are properly addressed. I can reassure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) that information and guidance are paramount to our thinking too. He rightly says that they are integral to the success of the Bill, but I do not think that strengthening the Bill in this regard will make any difference, because what really matters is ensuring that we deliver, with the local authorities, on the information and guidance requirements that we have set out.
	As we have discussed before, I think that Alison Wolf is far too pessimistic on the jobs issue, not least because 65 per cent. of young people aged 16 to 18 who are in work will not be affected at all by these provisions. They are working part time—they are doing less than 20 hours a week—so will be entirely unaffected. Her estimates are far too pessimistic, but we are determined to work with the CBI and other employer organisations supporting the Bill to ensure that there is no negative impact on the youth labour market. As somebody who worked closely on the minimum wage to ensure that it had no negative impact on the youth labour market, I can assure hon. Members that that is of paramount importance to me.
	On amendment No. 70, I say to Opposition Members that there will not be a need for employers to check with individual learning providers on enrolment—that will not be a matter for them. I know that those issues were discussed at length in Committee, and we have been true to what we said then. I do not think there is a need to amend the Bill; the important thing is to ensure that we deliver on the commitments that we have made, and we will do that.
	Youth appeals are a matter for the Ministry of Justice—the penalties regime—rather than for our Department, but we will ensure that we consult it fully. On information sharing, I know that there has been a report today from the Joint Committee that oversees human rights issues. We will respond in due course and ensure that our response goes to hon. Members in advance of those issues being discussed in the Lords.
	As we have discussed, new clauses 6 and 9 have been raised by Barnardo's and by Rainer. We are grateful to them and to Opposition Members for the part they have played in highlighting the approach being set out with learning agreements and for the work done on the education maintenance allowance, which is all about a quid pro quo—something for something, whereby young people have to demonstrate that they are learning and attending to get the money. We have also introduced issues around behaviour to the EMA. That shows that we are sympathetic to this approach.
	We are piloting and delivering a similar approach in activity agreements and learning agreements for 16 and 17-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training. Many voluntary sector organisations, including Barnardo's and Rainer, have played an important part in that "something for something" contract. The issue is whether we need to put that in the Bill.
	We believe that many local authorities will want to go down that road. It is part of ensuring that sanctions and penalties are very much a last resort, as was discussed in detail in Committee. We would go further and strongly encourage local authorities to pursue the approach being proposed by Rainer and by Barnardo's, and to go down that road before considering any formal enforcement action against a young person.
	We support that approach and will specify that in guidance to local authorities, but we do not think that the right thing to do is set it out in primary legislation. It is better to leave flexibility and discretion to local experts who know the needs of particular young people. It would be too inflexible and encumbering to specify it. At this stage, the right thing to do is work with careers services and local authorities to ensure that these measures are genuinely tailored to the needs of young people and we will do so—

Edward Balls: I have two minutes. If I give way, I will not be able to answer the question.
	Paul Head, principal of North East London college, said:
	"The reason I welcome compulsion is that it changes the nature of the terms of the debate. You no longer ask, 'How do we work our way up to 85 or 90 per cent.?' You actually start asking, 'Why are we not at 100 per cent.?'"
	That is the critical difference. We are ambitious for every young person, not just some.
	Our approach to the Bill is to ensure that school, college, work with training or an apprenticeship are available to all. We start from an assumption of 100 per cent. Rather than starting from 80 or 85 per cent. and working up, we want to ask, "Why don't we have 100 per cent?" That is our approach. The system can be galvanised, as Barnardo's, Rainer, the Prince's Trust and the principal of North East London college say, by starting from an assumption that that is universal for all.
	That is why we have consistently said that we should have a universal system for all. Compulsion as a last resort is necessary. I urge Opposition Members to change their minds, support excellence for all, not just for some, and back the Bill.

Amendment proposed: No. 72, in page 22, line 8, at end insert—
	'(7A) In this section, "reasonable excuse" includes circumstances in which a young person—
	(a) is homeless,
	(b) has health problems, including temporary illness, long term disability or ongoing mental health issues,
	(c) has addiction problems,
	(d) has secured a place on a course which does not start until the following month or the following term,
	(e) is recovering from giving birth,
	(f) has caring responsibilities, or
	(g) has particular learning difficulties for which support has not been put in place.'.— [ Mr. Hayes.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 139, Noes 258.

Amendments made: No. 113, page 74, line 26, leave out from 'of' to end of line 27 and insert—
	'(a) schools that are not maintained by local education authorities;
	(b) relevant independent educational institutions."'.
	No. 114, line 29, leave out from 'schools' to end of line 30.
	No. 115, leave out lines 31 to 33 and insert—
	'(zb) relevant independent educational institutions;".'.
	No. 116, line 34, leave out from 'matter,' to end of line 35 and insert 'for paragraph (b) substitute—
	"(b) pre-16 education or training, or post-16 education or training, provided otherwise than by institutions within paragraphs (za) to (a);".'.
	No. 117, line 36, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
	'( ) In matter 5.16 for ", any of the kinds of education, training or services mentioned in matter 5.15." substitute "—
	(a) pre-16 education or training;
	(b) post-16 education or training;
	(c) the training of teachers and specialist teaching assistants for schools;
	(d) services of the kinds mentioned in matter 5.8."'.
	No. 118, line 36, at end insert—
	'( ) After the definition of "post-16 training" insert—
	""pre-16 education or training" means education or training suitable to the requirements of persons who are of or below compulsory school age."
	"relevant independent educational institution" means an institution other than a school which—
	(e) provides part-time education for one or more persons of compulsory school age ("part-time students") whether or not it also provides full-time education for any person, and(f) would be an independent school but for the fact that the education provided for the part-time student or students is part-time rather than full-time.
	For the purposes of the above definition of "relevant independent educational institution", an institution provides "part-time" education for a person if—
	(a) it provides education for the person, and
	(b) the education does not amount to full-time education."'.— [Jim Knight.]

Amendments made: No. 120, page 77, line 23, leave out from 'decision' to 'for' in line 25 and insert 'about sixth form education'.
	No. 121, line 34, leave out from 'decision' to first 'for' in line 36 and insert
	'about sixth form education for the child,'.
	No. 122, line 38, at end insert—
	'( ) After subsection (6) insert—
	"(6A) In this section, any reference to a decision about sixth form education for a child is a reference to a decision—
	(a) made in relation to a preference expressed in accordance with arrangements made under section 86A(1) as to where education should be provided for the child, or
	(b) refusing permission for the child to enter the sixth form of the school to which he has been admitted." '.— [Jim Knight.]

Amendments made: No. 125, page 87, line 38, leave out from '65' to end of line 40.
	No. 126, page 88, line 3, leave out paragraph (f) and insert—
	'( ) paragraphs 62 to 64 and 66 of Schedule 1 (and section 149 so far as relating to those paragraphs);
	( ) the repeal in Schedule 2 relating to section 140 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21) (and section 149 so far as relating to that repeal).'.
	No. 127, line 4, leave out 'Sections 133 and 144' and insert 'The following provisions'.
	No. 128, line 5, at end insert—
	'(a) section 133;
	(b) section [Admission arrangements](1) and (4), so far as relating to sections 88P and 88Q of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (c. 31);
	(c) section 144.'.— [Jim Knight.]

Amendments made: No. 129, page 92, line 9, at end insert—
	'(1) Section 548 (no right to give corporal punishment) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1)—
	(a) in paragraph (a), for "school" substitute "relevant educational institution";
	(b) in paragraphs (b) and (c), for "school" substitute "a relevant educational institution".
	(3) In subsection (2) for "school" substitute "relevant educational institution".
	(4) In subsection (6)—
	(a) in paragraph (a) for "school" substitute "relevant educational institution";
	(b) in paragraph (b)(i) for "school" substitute "institution".
	(5) After subsection (7) insert—
	"(7A) "Relevant educational institution" means—
	(a) a school, or
	(b) an independent educational institution in England other than a school.
	(7B) In subsection (7A)(b) "independent educational institution" has the same meaning as in Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 (see section 77 of that Act)."'.
	No. 130, in page 97, line 26 [Schedule 1], at end insert—
	 'Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70)
	In section 177(1A) of the Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) (allowances: supplementary provisions), after paragraph (c) insert "and
	(d) regulations made by virtue of section 42(4) of the Education and Skills Act 2008 (allowances for attendance panels)." '.
	No. 131, page 98, line 38, at end insert—
	' In section 439 (school attendance: specification of schools), in subsection (2), after "section" insert "88C or".'.
	No. 132, page 99, line 32, at end insert—
	'In subsection (5), after "section" insert "88C or".
	In subsection (5A)—
	(a) after "under section" insert "88C or";
	(b) for "paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 89A(2)" substitute "section 88D(2)(a) and (b) or 89A(2)(a) and (b)".
	In subsection (5B)(a) and (b), after "section" insert "88C or".'.
	No. 133, line 38, at end insert—
	' After section 88Q (inserted by section [Admission arrangements]) insert—
	 "Admission arrangements: Wales
	88R Prohibition on interviews
	(1) No admission arrangements for a maintained school in Wales may require or authorise any interview with an applicant for admission to the school or his parents, where the interview is to be taken into account (to any extent) in determining whether the applicant is to be admitted to the school.
	(2) If the maintained school is one at which boarding accommodation is provided for pupils, subsection (1) does not apply in relation to any interview intended to assess the suitability of an applicant for a boarding place.
	(3) Where the admission arrangements for a maintained school in Wales make provision for a permitted form of selection by aptitude, subsection (1) does not prevent the arrangements from requiring or authorising any audition or other oral or practical test to be carried out in relation to an applicant solely for the purpose of ascertaining the applicant's aptitude in accordance with the arrangements.
	(4) In this section "permitted form of selection by aptitude" is to be read in accordance with section 99(4)." '.
	No. 134, line 39, leave out paragraph 58 and insert—
	'(1) Section 89 (procedure for determining admission arrangements) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1), after "maintained school" insert "in Wales".
	(3) Omit subsections (1ZA) and (1A).
	(4) In subsection (5), for "the adjudicator" substitute "the Welsh Ministers".
	(5) In subsection (6)—
	(a) for "The adjudicator" substitute "The Welsh Ministers";
	(b) for "he determines" substitute "they determine";
	(c) for "he may determine" substitute "they may determine";
	(d) in paragraph (a), for "his" substitute "their".
	(6) Omit subsection (7).
	(7) In subsection (8)(g), for "the Secretary of State considers" substitute "the Welsh Ministers consider".
	(8) In subsection (10) omit paragraph (b).
	(1) Section 89A (determination of admission numbers) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1), after "maintained school" insert "in Wales".
	(3) In subsection (3), after "maintained school" insert "in Wales".'.
	No. 135, page 100, line 1, leave out 'In section' and insert—
	'(1) Section'.
	No. 136, line 1, leave out 'after' and insert 'is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1), after "authority" insert "in Wales".
	(3) In subsection (2)—
	(a) for "the Secretary of State" substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(b) after "authority" insert "in Wales".
	(4) In subsection (3)(b)—
	(a) for "the Secretary of State" substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(b) for "him" substitute "them.
	(5) In subsection (4)—
	(a) for "The Secretary of State" substitute "The Welsh Ministers";
	(b) after "authorities" in the first place in which it occurs, insert "in Wales";
	(c) for "them" substitute "such other authorities".
	(6) In subsection (5)—
	(a) in paragraph (a), after "authority" in the first place in which it occurs insert "in Wales";
	(b) in paragraph (b), after "maintained school" insert "in Wales".
	(7) After'.
	No. 137, line 4, after 'schools' insert 'in Wales'.
	No. 138, line 9, at end insert—
	' (1) Section 89C (further provision about schemes adopted or made by virtue of section 89B) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1)—
	(a) in paragraph (a), after "local education authorities" insert "in Wales";
	(b) in paragraph (b), after "maintained schools" insert "in Wales".
	(3) In subsection (2)—
	(a) after "local education authority" in the first place where it occurs, insert "in Wales", and
	(b) after "maintained school" insert "in Wales".
	(4) In subsections (3) and (3A), after "a maintained school" insert "in Wales".
	(5) In subsections (6) and (7), for "the Secretary of State" in each place substitute "the Welsh Ministers".
	Omit section 89D (power to restrict alteration of admission arrangements following establishment or expansion).
	(1) Section 90 (reference of objections to adjudicator or Secretary of State) is amended as follows.
	(2) In the title, for "adjudicator or Secretary of State" substitute "Welsh Ministers".
	(3) In subsections (1) and (2), for "the adjudicator" substitute "the Welsh Ministers".
	(4) After subsection (2) insert—
	"(2A) Where any objection is referred to the Welsh Ministers, they shall decide whether, and (if so) to what extent, the objection should be upheld."
	(5) Omit subsections (3) to (5).
	(6) In subsection (5A)—
	(a) for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State is" substitute "the Welsh Ministers are";
	(b) for "subsection (3)(a) or (b) or (5)(c)" substitute "(2A)";
	(c) for "he" (in both places) substitute "they".
	(7) In subsection (5B)—
	(a) for "him" substitute "them";
	(b) for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State (as the case may be)" substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(c) in paragraphs (a), (b) and (d), for "his" substitute "their";
	(d) in paragraph (b) for "he has" substitute "they have";
	(e) omit paragraph (c);
	(f) in paragraph (d), for "to (c)" substitute "and (b)".
	(8) In subsection (5C)—
	(a) for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State (as the case may be) decides" substitute "the Welsh Ministers decide";
	(b) for "his" substitute "their".
	(9) In subsection (8)—
	(a) for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State" (in both places) substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(b) for "has" substitute "have".
	(10) In subsection (9)—
	(a) in paragraph (a)—
	(i) for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State" (in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii)) substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(ii) in sub-paragraph (ii), for "is" substitute "are" and for "him" substitute "them";
	(b) in paragraph (b), for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State" substitute "the Welsh Ministers";
	(c) omit paragraph (ba);
	(d) in paragraphs (e) and (f), for "the adjudicator or the Secretary of State" substitute "the Welsh Ministers".
	(11) In subsection (11), omit paragraph (b).
	After section 90 insert—
	"90ZA Regulations by Welsh Ministers under sections 89 to 90
	In sections 89 to 90—
	"prescribed" means prescribed by regulations made by the Welsh Ministers;
	"regulations" means regulations made by the Welsh Ministers."
	Omit section 90A (restrictions on alteration of admission arrangements following adjudicator's decision).
	Before section 92 insert—
	 "Publication of information about admissions: England and Wales" '.
	No. 139, line 18, at end insert—
	' (1) Section 98 (admission for nursery education or to nursery or special school: children with statements of special educational needs) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (2)—
	(a) in paragraph (a), after "section" insert "88C or";
	(b) in paragraph (b), after "section" insert "88D or".
	(3) In subsection (9)(b), after "section" insert "88C or".
	In section 103 (permitted selection: introduction, variation or abandonment of provision for such selection), in subsection (1), after "sections" insert "88C to 88K or, as the case may be,".
	In section 108 (implementation of decision that school should cease to have selective admission arrangements), in subsection (2), after "sections" insert "88C to 88K or, as the case may be,".'.
	No. 140, line 18, at end insert—
	After section 138 insert—
	"138A Regulations made by Welsh Ministers under sections 89 to 90
	(1) Any power of the Welsh Ministers to make regulations under sections 89 to 90 shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.
	(2) A statutory instrument containing any such regulations made by the Welsh Ministers shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales.
	(3) Any such regulations may make different provision for different cases, circumstances or areas and may contain such incidental, supplemental, saving or transitional provisions as the Welsh Ministers think fit."
	In section 142(1) (general interpretation)—
	(a) in the definition of "prescribed", after ""prescribed"" insert "(except in sections 89 to 90)";
	(b) in the definition of "regulations", after ""regulations"" insert "(except in sections 89 to 90)".
	(1) Section 143 (index) is amended as follows.
	(2) For the entry relating to "prescribed" substitute—
	
		
			 "prescribed  
			(generally) section 142(1) 
			(in sections 89 to 90) section 90ZA". 
		
	
	(3) For the entry relating to "regulations" substitute—
	
		
			 "regulations  
			(generally) section 142(1) 
			(in sections 89 to 90) section 90ZA".'. 
		
	
	No. 141, line 41, at end insert—
	 'Tax Credits Act 2002 (c. 21)
	Omit paragraph 10 of Schedule 5 to the Tax Credits Act 2002 (c. 21) (provision of information by HMRC for education purposes).'.
	No. 142, line 5, at end insert—
	 'Sexual Offences Act 2003 (c. 42)
	In section 21 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (c. 42) (positions of trust), in subsection (7), for paragraph (b) substitute—
	"(b) section 54, 56(1)(b) or 59 of the Education and Skills Act 2008,".
	 Children Act 2004 (c. 31)
	The Children Act 2004 (c. 31) is amended as follows.
	In section 10 (co-operation to improve well-being), in subsection (4)(f), for "under section 114 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21)" substitute "in pursuance of section 54 of the Education and Skills Act 2008".
	In section 11 (arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare), in subsection (1)(m), for "under section 114 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21)" substitute "in pursuance of section 59 of the Education and Skills Act 2008".
	In section 13(3)(g) (Local Safeguarding Children's Boards), for "under section 114 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21)" substitute "in pursuance of section 54 of the Education and Skills Act 2008".'.
	No. 143, line 13, at end insert—
	 'Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (c. 47)
	In section 21 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (c. 47) (controlled activity relating to children), in subsection (6)(b), for "section 117(1) of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (c. 21)" substitute "section 57 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 relating to children".'.— [Jim Knight.]

Amendments made: No. 144, page 101, line 16, at end insert—
	
		
			 'Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) In section 177(1A), the word "and" preceding paragraph (c).'. 
		
	
	No. 145, line 30, at end insert—
	
		
			  'In section 89— 
			  (a) subsections (1ZA), (1A) and (7), and 
			  (b) in subsection (10), paragraph (b) and the word "and" preceding it. 
			  Section 89D. 
			  In section 90— 
			  (a) subsections (3) to (5), 
			  (b) in subsection (5B), paragraph (c) (but not the word "and" following it), 
			  (c) subsection (9)(ba), and 
			  (d) in subsection (11), paragraph (b) and the word "and" preceding it. 
			  Section 90A.'. 
		
	
	No. 146, line 38, at end insert—
	
		
			 'Tax Credits Act 2002 (c. 21) In Schedule 5, paragraph 10.'. 
		
	
	No. 147, page 102, line 34, at end insert—
	
		
			  'Section 106.'. 
		
	
	No. 148, line 38, in column 2, at beginning insert—
	
		
			  'Section 46. 
			  Section 47(5)(a). 
			  Section 50(3). 
			  Section 52(2).'. 
		
	
	 Order for Third Reading read.

Jim Knight: I will not take any more interventions because I need to leave time for others to take part in this short Third Reading debate.
	We are supporting our aims with broader reforms that will open up new learning pathways, improve access to existing ones, and give young people a firm grounding in the basics and the specialist training that they need to succeed. We are providing a sharp focus on functional skills—English, maths and information, communications and technology—in every qualification at every level. The new 14-to-19 diplomas, the first of which starts this September, will combine traditional and applied learning across a broad range of subjects. There will be more opportunities for adults to continue in learning and to gain the basic skills to help them to progress. We are seeing more engagement from employers, who are offering an additional 90,000 apprenticeships by 2013.
	With a broader choice of options, young people will be able to select a career path that plays to their strengths, makes the most of their talents and gives them the skills that employers want and young people need to succeed. Those currently in year 6 will be the first to feel the benefits of this legislation—from year 6 to their 60s, when they retire after a long and satisfying career. I want to set the stage for this country to become a world leader in skills for the next 60 years and beyond. No one will be left out and no one will be left behind.
	To those who suggest an entitlement rather than compulsion, I say that 16 and 17-year-olds already have an entitlement to learning through the duty on the Learning and Skills Council to secure appropriate provision for them. We need to go further and we must go further. To those who suggest that some young people or groups of young people should be exempt from the duty, I say that that would mean that we would be failing those young people. That is not acceptable.
	The case is very clear. This Third Reading is the chance for Opposition Members to come off the fence on the principle of the Bill, rather than sit on the Benches without stating an opinion. Opposition Members either support ambition, aspiration and achievement or they do not. They either support fair access to education for all or they do not. They either want to secure a strong and prosperous future for our young people and our economy, or they do not. This Bill will ensure that young people have opportunities, take them and are in a better position to create their own so that their education is not time lost but the chance to build a brighter future.
	The Government are making the difficult decisions to raise ambition and aspiration for all. Now is the time for the Conservatives to show their mettle and support us—to move from excellence for some to our agenda of excellence for all. I am pleased to commend this Bill to the House.

Nick Gibb: The Conservative party believes strongly in the goal of higher rates of participation in education and training to the age of 18. Not only do we believe in it, we are passionate about it. High quality education is the key to prosperity and the route out of poverty, and, conversely, poor quality schools are a life sentence to unfulfilled lives and low levels of social mobility. The Government are right to have an objective of raising participation age and their aspiration that 100 per cent. of 16 and 17-year-olds should stay in education until the age of 18 is right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said on Second Reading:
	"We believe that getting more young people to participate fruitfully in education for longer—and not just to age 18—is an unalloyed good."—[ Official Report, 14 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 668.]
	The Government are right to be worried about the fact that only 77 per cent. of 16 and 17-year-olds stay on in education to 18, which puts this country in a lamentable 19th position in the league table of participation rates in developed countries. That figure is a serious problem for this country in an open, global economy where knowledge and expertise are the keys to innovation and vital to ensuring market share and national prosperity. Such a low staying-on rate is a symptom of deeper problems in our education system. The approach of passing a law to make it a criminal offence to leave education or training before the age of 18 is an attempt to tackle the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause.
	Today, 53 per cent.. of 16-year-olds leave compulsory education without having achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in English and maths. Yet I know of several comprehensive schools that have a truly comprehensive intake of a range of abilities, where 96 per cent. achieve five or more GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths. Maths specialists tell us that almost every 15 and 16-year-old, apart from those with specific learning difficulties, is capable of achieving at least a grade C in GCSE maths. Why is that not happening?
	One in five 11-year-olds leave primary schools unable to read effectively despite seven years of primary education. Forty per cent. start secondary school without achieving a level in reading, writing and maths combined that would enable them to benefit from secondary education. That is the source of the 23 per cent. who do not stay on in education or training until the age of 16, of the 500,000 persistent truants and of the 40 per cent. who fail to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C.
	Ministers say that the purpose of compulsion is to tackle the stubborn final 10 per cent. and raise participation from 90 per cent. to 100 per cent. However, we are still a long way from 90 per cent. We have a staying-on rate of only 77 per cent. and the disaffection that leads to 23 per cent. dropping out at 16 has the same causes as that of the final 10 per cent. We simply do not believe that criminalising the 10 per cent. will achieve any higher educational attainment for that group.
	The Government commissioned research into the international experience of introducing compulsion. The National Foundation for Educational Research concluded:
	"There was little or no evidence of the likely impact of introducing a system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18."
	That conclusion is supported by charities that specialise in helping especially vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds—the group that the Bill aims to help.
	Nigel Haynes, chief executive of Fairbridge, which works with young people who have deep-seated problems, said in his evidence to the Committee:
	"what evidence is there that compulsion has an effect? With the young people we deal with, the fact that they come because they want to and stay because they want to is a stronger motivation for change." ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 193, Q445.]
	Martina Milburn of the Prince's Trust said:
	"We have great concerns about compulsion. If we are looking at the experience of the Prince's Trust with the young people on our programmes... the bulk of those young people came through a voluntary programme." ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 16, Q34.]
	The NUT stated in written evidence:
	"The NUT is concerned that the focus in the Bill on sanctions and criminalisation for failing to participate may be counter-productive." ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 5 February 2008; c. 315.]
	Alison Woolf has been cited frequently in the debate. She raised concerns about the effect of compulsion on the labour market and the employment prospects for 16 and 17-year-olds, especially given the legal duties that the Bill imposes on employers. She said that
	"the negative impact that the Bill will have by effectively destroying the labour market for 16 and 17-year-olds is enormously underestimated." ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 107, Q272.]
	The Government should examine the causes of the problem to determine why so many people are so disaffected with our education system that more leave school at 16 without going on to further education in this country than in most developed countries. As the Children's Rights Alliance stated:
	"Young people who leave education at 16 do so because they have a history of unsatisfactory experiences in the education system, or because they have issues in their lives."
	That does not mean that those young people are not entitled to an academic secondary education. It means that they went to one of the 49 per cent. of schools that Ofsted categorises as "not good enough", or—worse—they attended one of the 638 failing secondary schools, or they started secondary education with a reading age of nine or lower, or they went to a secondary school where behaviour was out of control and the prevailing ethos was one in which being seen to work and study hard was to be uncool and an invitation to be bullied.
	Two weeks ago, I visited a secondary school where more than half the intake had a reading age of nine or below. That is unacceptable. No child should leave primary school with such poor reading skills. Reading is a low level skill, which every child, whatever their ability, should have mastered in the first years of primary school.
	As Alison Woolf said in her paper, "Diminished Returns":
	"One of the best-established findings in educational research is that children who are behind when they leave primary school find it almost impossible to catch up... With very few exceptions, children who are performing well at age 11 do not, at age 17 or 18, figure as NEETs."
	That is of course true. Nothing demotivates a person more than not being able to do something that they are meant to be able to do.
	Starting secondary school still unable to read properly and with ease is bound to lead to five more years of disaffection with education. That is why we intend to introduce a screening test—a simple, standardised reading test—at the end of the second year of primary education, to ensure that every child can decode words effortlessly, including false words. For too many decades we have allowed millions of children to emerge without having mastered the basic skills of reading. That is no longer acceptable to the Government, the public or our party. Tom Wilson of the TUC told the Public Bill Committee:
	"A lot of working people feel very angry that the system has let them down and that they have gone through 10 years of school and emerged unable to read or write." ——[Official Report, Education and Skills Bill Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 52, Q132.]
	They are right to be angry. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)—I do not know whether I should mention him, but I have—was right to conclude his speech on Second Reading thus:
	"My plea is for the group whom we are failing most...they are in no way damaged...They are very bright. The question is: why, when they are so bright, do we fail them so dismally?"—[ Official Report, 14 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 705-06.]
	We need to ensure that our education system uses teaching methods and the curriculum that the evidence demonstrates are most effective and that are not based simply on a fad or someone's assertion. The decades-long ideological experiment of look-and-say and real books has been deeply damaging to millions of children, particularly those from the poorest backgrounds. That, combined with mixed-ability teaching in secondary schools and a culture of low expectations in too many inner-city schools, has left this country with one of the lowest participation rates in the developed world. Tackling that issue lies at the core of raising participation, rather than introducing a Bill that criminalises the young people whom our education system has let down, threatens the youth labour market and burdens colleges and local authorities with new costs. Organisations that work with the most vulnerable young people say that the Bill and the concept of compulsion will simply not work.

David Chaytor: I commend the Government for getting the Bill on to the statute book. It is a landmark Bill, in exactly the same way that the raising of the school-leaving age in 1972 from 15 to 16 was a landmark piece of legislation.
	To those who argue against compulsion, I simply say this: do they honestly think that if the 1972 legislation had not put a legal requirement on parents to send their children to school until the age of 16, we would have witnessed the progress that has been achieved since then? It is manifestly obvious that there must be a legal sanction if we want to increase the participation age. However, that does not mean that the legal sanction is the centrepiece of the Government's means of increasing the participation age.
	The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) is absolutely right that the root cause of our comparatively low level of post-16 participation lies firmly in weaknesses earlier in the education system, and in some aspects of secondary education in particular. However, I return to the point that we touched on in the debate on the first group of amendments on Report. He and his party remain in a state of denial about the relationship between school admissions policies and the capacity of individual schools to perform well and do the best for their children.
	Some of the problems that the hon. Gentleman described are the legacy of admissions systems based on selection by ability, explicitly or implicitly, and many forms of quasi-selection, which leave large numbers of young people demoralised and demotivated, because they know at an early age that they have been deselected. That is one of the root causes of alienation in the secondary stage of education, and low self-esteem and demotivation at the age of 16, which result in Britain having one of the lowest post-16 participation rates of any country in the OECD.
	I commend the Government for the progress that they are making on fair admissions to our secondary schools. The Bill will bring about significant changes as the years go by. However, the longer we put off tackling the fundamental issue of selection by ability, which is the cause of our hierarchical secondary school system, the more difficult it will be to expand the numbers of young people wishing voluntarily to stay on beyond the age of 16. We want a generation of young people who enjoy school, who have high self-esteem and self-confidence and who are able to follow a curriculum that is relevant and tailored to their interests. The Government's curriculum reforms for 14 to 19-year-olds are absolutely central to this aim.
	I want briefly to touch on two other points, which have not been mentioned in the debate so far. The first is transport. I want to say to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, sooner or later, the House will have to look far more seriously at the question of concessionary travel for all young people. The changes proposed in the Bill will bring about a significant increase in demand for public transport. They will require more young people to travel further and in many more different directions in the course of a week than ever before. In the context of the national debate about climate change, congestion charging and the cost of transport, the Government will need to build on the success of the national concessionary fare scheme for pensioners. They must now start to do serious work on a national concessionary fare scheme for young people, because that will be the key to ensuring that the fairly complex arrangements envisaged by the Bill are successful.
	Finally, now that we have a 14-to-19 curriculum and a 14-to-19 phase of education, and now that we expect to see far more young people continuing beyond the age of 16, is it not absolutely logical that we need fair funding across the 14-to-19 phase? We can no longer justify the differential funding between school sixth forms, colleges and workplace training. Perhaps the Minister will say a few words about that when he winds up the debate.

David Laws: I should like to echo the thanks given by the Front-Bench spokesmen for the Government and the Conservatives to all those in front of and behind the scenes who have helped with the scrutiny of the Bill over the past few months. It will be clear by now to all those who have taken part in the debates that there are fundamental differences of approach and philosophy in tackling this problem. On my side of the House, the emphasis has been on tackling the problems that cause many young people to leave the education system at 16 or even before. We have not yet focused on the fact that there are many young people aged 14 and 15 who should, by law, be in education but who are not, or on the fact that the existing laws are not very effective at keeping them in the system.
	In our debates, we have tried to focus not only on the ideological or philosophical gap between the Government, who believe in making it a criminal offence to be outside education at the ages of 16 and 17, and our emphasis on challenging inequalities of opportunity and ensuring that young people have the ability to go on beyond the age of 16. We have also tried to focus on some of the practical issues that we want addressed in order to be able to sign up to the practical effect of the Bill. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House share the aspiration that 16 and 17-year-olds should be either in education or employment, or in some other form of support if they are unable to be in education or employment. Very few Members would not want youngsters aged 16 or 17 to be in one of those settings.
	I want to raise a couple of points on which the Government have failed to satisfy us, and on which I hope the debates in another place will make some progress. I was disappointed that the Secretary of State was unwilling to incorporate into the Bill the provisions in new clauses 6 and 9 that would have made it clear that one of the options for young people, post-16, should be for them to be in some kind of supported setting that falls short of the formal education and training settings that the Government envisage in the Bill. I wonder whether the Government are more determined to reach a particular figure allowing them to say that every 16 or 17-year-old is in education and training than to really serve those young people's needs.
	We know, and I am sure the Minister would recognise, that there is a very small group of 16 or 17-year-olds who cannot easily engage in the type of education and training envisaged under the Bill. It would be sensible for the Government not to try to allow that eventuality to be dealt with in unspecified regulations or by urging local authorities and attendance panels to take some sort of flexible approach. This issue should be provided for directly in the Bill. It should be an option for local authorities to give young people with mental health problems or other health problems or who are alienated from the education system by the age of 16 the type of engagement that will bring them back into education while dealing with their underlying problems. I hope that the other place, which will look closely at this matter in its debates over the next few months, will seek to come back to this decision and include in the Bill the option to not simply have the inflexible education and training scenarios currently envisaged by the Government.
	The second issue that I hope the other place will return to in the months ahead is the treatment of young people who are in employment at the ages of 16 and 17. I am concerned, as are many hon. Members who participated in the debate, that the Bill could dissuade employers from offering young people aged 16 and 17 the job opportunities that often may be more relevant to those who have become disengaged from education and training in a formal setting. The risk is not only that those young people could lose out, but that we end up with a group of young people who do not engage in education and training, and who could be in employment but will not be because employers will be unwilling to take the risk on account of the enforcement measures in the Bill.
	I hope that the other place will be able to save this Bill, which is undoubtedly based on good aspirations, but is in danger, because of the process of legislation and the inflexibilities within the system, of becoming bad legislation, which would be bad for many of the young people affected by it.

Charles Walker: When I was elected to Parliament, I was told not to bring emotion to this place, but I have a list with me of 13 young boys killed in London since 1 January this year. It includes Jimmy Mizen, who was killed just a couple of days ago at the age of 16. Lyle Tulloch was 15; Amro Elbadawi, 14; and Devoe Roach, 17. These were young men killed by children and youngsters—people who have made the wrong decision in their lives.
	I have a rage about the fact that that is going on, I really do. I was wondering about it, and I had this terrible thought. Why are people taking lives? I am so concerned that we have youngsters whose last thought before they go to sleep is, "Who am I?" and that the answer they get back is "Nobody, I am nobody." Because nobody cares where they are going, who they are, what they have done or what their purpose in life is, they in turn do not care when they cause huge emotional disaster and tragedy by taking the life of someone's child.
	I hope that this Bill will reach out to some of those people who are lost to society and who make the wrong decisions. I hope that it will allow them to reconnect with society, to learn to read and write, to learn a skill, to remain in education and to have a job, someone who cares whether they turn up in the morning and a place to welcome them to work. Maybe if they become part of our society, we will save lives in the long term. That is why this Bill is so important. It really is important. I know it has its flaws. We know in this place that it has flaws, but we must do something to stop the tragedies that are going on week in, week out, on our streets.
	We in this place, the people in the Press Gallery and the people watching this on television—the few out there—must all collectively say, "No more. No more tragedies." We have to do something, and the Bill is a small step in the right direction. For that reason, I support it.

Christopher Huhne: I beg to move,
	That the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (House of Commons Paper No. 321), a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th February, be disapproved.
	I want to make the case that the Home Office must start again. I shall argue that the rule changes will involve injustice to many individuals, including some child victims of trafficking, whom the Government are pledged to help. The changes will introduce automatic penalties for breaches of rules which, in the view of the Liberal Democrats, will prove to be counter-productive—far from saving official time, they will mean more appeals to the courts. The essential issue is whether people who breach entry rules, perhaps by making a mistake, or whose agents breach entry rules, must pay for that with an automatic—I repeat, automatic—ban on the right to reapply for entry for at least a year and for up to 10 years, regardless of circumstances, regardless of fault, regardless of understanding. As far as I know, the Home Office has yet to win the plain English prize for Government forms.
	The Government say in their explanatory notes that this is about penalising deception, but deception implies that the officials concerned understand intention. One of the most difficult things to prove in any court of law is what is going on inside the defendant's head. It is certainly no more possible to infer from a potential immigrant's mistake on a form that he or she is deceiving people than it would be fair for me to accuse Home Office Ministers of deception every time their Department made a mistake. Of all Departments of State, surely the Home Office—found, only this week, to have the lowest capability level of any Department—ought to understand better than most the difference between an honest mistake and a deception.
	The proposed change is a serious matter, which will involve injustice and hardship. A mistake will lead to exclusion from this country for one year or more, which may mean separation from family, friends and, in some cases, employment. Imagine someone who has lived in this country for some years with a partner and children. He or she may have overstayed, and may now wish to regularise the stay. His adviser would now say "Come clean, depart voluntarily and reapply on the basis of continuing family life", but he will be excluded for at least one year, and possibly up to 10 years if there has been any previous deception.
	What an extraordinary incentive for people to remain undercover and not to regularise. What an appalling prospect for a person's partner and child if he or she tells the truth and comes clean. What a potential infringement of the Human Rights Act, and of article 8 of the European convention on human rights on the right to family life. The Liberal Democrats are waiting eagerly to hear whether the Minister can make a concession on this, at the very least.
	The proposed change entirely contradicts the expressed desire of Government policy to be compassionate with victims of child trafficking, outlined by the Minister's colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), in a recent debate on the ratification of the international convention. During that debate, on 18 January, Members in all parties spoke eloquently of the need to tackle human trafficking, particularly child trafficking, and to stand up for its victims.
	On 19 February, in evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Minister conceded that there might be a need for "carve-outs" to protect children and victims of human trafficking. The Children's Commissioner wrote to request that he include an
	"exception for those who were under 18 at the time of the breach".
	However, the Minister replied that the concern over trafficked and asylum-seeking children had been answered by the concession that delayed the implementation of the changes until 1 October. That is plainly wrong. How does the concession help children brought here by traffickers, who will in future be subject to re-entry bans for varying lengths of time because they entered the country illegally, although they were effectively kidnapped? They are least likely to be able to afford their passage home, and may therefore be subject to more severe penalties.
	What will happen to a person who used to live in the United Kingdom with his or her parents? If the parents overstayed, or used deception in that person's application when he or she was a child, that child will not be able to come and study in the United Kingdom without being subject to a blanket re-entry ban for offences of which he or she is completely innocent. In the extraordinary, discretion-free world that the Government are creating, the sins of the parents, of people-traffickers or of the person who is trying to take a child away from danger to sanctuary in the UK—albeit illegally—are visited on the child. I cannot believe that that is what the Minister intended, and I urge him to amend the rules to exclude offences committed when the person concerned was under 18.
	Let me cite another case. Recently, the chief executive of the UK Border Agency told her officials not to be so silly when they were about to remove three students; the students had wrongly filled in their applications to extend their stay, and were branded "overstayers". The lack of discretion in the new rules means that that second chance would now be entirely impossible. Indeed, the mistake may now also be viewed as deception and the students be banned from returning and completing their course, or from undertaking postgraduate studies. That is an arbitrary and extraordinary imposition, and a terrible way to make friends and influence people who may return to their countries and in due course become people of influence and position.
	This is not just likely to involve injustice and hardship, but to prove counter-productive in streamlining the immigration procedures. Of course, we can understand the Minister's logic. The Minister is a former management consultant; he understands these problems. Officials are human, and to err is human; therefore, officials err. It is an ineluctable logic—although when it was first expounded I doubt that anyone had in mind the spectacular capacity for human error recently perfected by the Home Office. After all, such a large proportion of decisions are overturned on appeal—in asylum cases, for example—that it must be intuitively appealing for discretion to be removed entirely from the process.
	This is immigration rulings by rote; there is no room in these rules for any discretion. It does not matter whether someone has overstayed by one day or 10 years, or whether they have made a typo on a form or they have used false documents. That rigidity and automaticity will not save official time, however. We Liberal Democrats contend that it will prove counter-productive because more and more cases will end up in the courts and there is no evidence that the UK Border Agency is capable of handling them because, extraordinarily, there was an abject failure on the part of Ministers to consult on these matters before tabling their proposals in February, and because, most bizarrely of all, the changes are regarded as too trivial to merit an impact assessment. Why then are Ministers coming to this House and undertaking such trivial changes, and failing to concentrate on serious matters that deserve their attention? If, as we contend, these matters are far from trivial, why is there no consultation and no impact assessment from either the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice, when the courts system may well have to bear the fall-out and sweep up the mess?
	The Government should withdraw these changes, at least until those assessments have been undertaken and they know what they are doing. At the very least, we need a provision for the exercise of discretion in cases of minor and inadvertent breaches and we need exceptions for children, people who have been trafficked and asylum seekers.
	I have attempted to show that the rules would lead to significant injustice. Children, who most need our protection, would be denied it and potential immigrants would be discouraged from regularising their position because it might mean, de facto, the break-up of their family and the loss of their job. Automaticity will not only prove to be a poor handmaiden of justice, but it will also lead to increasing numbers of appeals against arbitrary and insensitive official decisions. We conclude that the measures will not even deliver a reduced burden on the officials concerned, who will find themselves increasingly often in court.
	For all those reasons, we beg to move that the measures be now disapproved.

Simon Hughes: I think the Minister will be getting the message by now. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who speaks for the Conservative party on immigration, and the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), whose Joint Committee on Human Rights considered the matter at a very appropriate time, have made the strong general case that the rules that we are discussing, which were presented to Parliament without consultation, are clearly not justified. They would not only fail to remedy a mischief but would leave the system for dealing with people who want to come to this country properly far worse than it is now.
	I want to add two points about procedure. As the Minister will know, we have a ridiculous system, although I do not blame him personally for that. The changes to the immigration rules were published on 6 February. The Joint Committee met on 19 February to consider them. Hon. Members have 28 days in which to pray against rules and, with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh and other colleagues, we did so. That hopefully triggers a debate. However, some of the proposed changes came into force on 29 February, while the changes that we are concerned with tonight came into force on 1 April. From 1 April all the new rules were in place, even though we had not yet held the debate on whether they should be in place.
	The Leader of the House has accepted that the system is nonsensical. This is not a Home Office problem, but a general Government problem. We must change the system whereby important rules introduced under secondary legislation come into force before we have had the chance to debate them. If we had had the chance to debate them, the point about the absence of consultation, made by all three colleagues who have spoken so far tonight, would have been pre-eminently made, and Ministers would have said, "We understand, and we'll reflect on those points."
	Happily, there was a debate in the House of Lords between 6 February, when the rules were laid before Parliament, and 1 April, when the changes that we are most concerned with today came into effect. The debate was initiated by my noble Friend Lord Avebury, and he was supported by my noble Friend the Liberal Democrat Lord Roberts of Llandudno. Anyone who reads that debate—as the Minister, the hon. Member for Ashford and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh have clearly done—will see that it showed overwhelmingly that the situation is nonsensical. To his credit, the Minister in the Lords accepted that it was nonsense, and at the end of the debate he said that the rules in question would not come into force on 1 April; instead, their implementation would be deferred until October.
	Like friends and colleagues from all parts of the House, I deal with a huge number of immigration cases of the kind that we are discussing. It is not a record that I aspired to hold, but I think that I am currently at the top of the Home Office league table because of the number of cases that I have brought before it. Colleagues who are present, including the hon. Members for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), for Hendon and for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), also deal regularly with significant numbers of cases that would involve the rule that we are discussing.
	Let us be absolutely clear. The changes are misguided. If there was a breach of any of the rules, or if there was a failure—it is set out in these terms in the proposed changes—by overstaying, which could be by a day, or by a breach of a condition, which could be one failure to report, or by being an illegal entrant, which is obviously more serious but the applicant could have been as a child, brought as a relative, brought as a teenager, brought with somebody else, brought against their will, or brought not knowing what was happening, or by using deception in an application for entry clearance, whether the deception was theirs or was carried out on their behalf by an agent, by somebody whom their family had paid or whatever—any of those circumstances would automatically lead to a series of blanket bans, depending on the circumstance of the person's departure.
	If the migrant leaves voluntarily, it might be a year before they can come back in any circumstance; five years if they left voluntarily at public expense and only if they had repaid the cost; 10 years if they were removed or deported; and 10 years if they used deception—no questions, no qualification, no exemptions, a blanket ban. The case has been made as to why that is nonsense. To give the Minister some credit, his Department during his tenure as Immigration Minister and under all his predecessors from both the Labour and the Conservative parties since I have been in the House has always had a system whereby, as well as the immigration law and the rules, discretion has been available to the Home Office. That is normally exercised by officials and occasionally by Ministers, if the matter needs to go higher, so to speak. Officials regularly exercise that discretion because there is a good case, and so they should. Ministers occasionally do so, too.
	That is as it should be. The case for the changes to the rules would not be justifiable in human rights law, as the hon. Member for Hendon pointed out, on the basis of the right to family life or on non-discrimination, and the system would not be sustainable or tenable if discretion were not allowed as a remedy for the person who, for example, was due to leave on a certain day and whose flight was cancelled, or who was due to go and report and was taken seriously ill. There are all sorts of examples.
	In my office we were alerted to the issue pretty well immediately by people with whom we work, who represent immigrants and asylum seekers. They are highly respected companies and organisations, particularly the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. This had an immediate effect and rang alarm bells, hinted at by previous speakers. When I saw that Lord Bassam had agreed that there would be concessions until October, I advised everyone in my constituency who was likely to be affected to go immediately. I explained that if they went by October, there was a chance that they would benefit from the exemption and be allowed back in if they made an application.
	That was no different from the practice that I have adopted for years when people come to me. I have many Sierra Leoneans in my constituency. Let us suppose that one of them had married a Sierra Leonean who had indefinite leave to remain in the UK, or who had become British by nationality, but they did not have proper status, possibly because they had been a student and overstayed, or had come as a visitor and overstayed, or had a work permit and overstayed for whatever reason, and they thought that that would be valid. I have always said to them, "The best way for you to deal with this is for you to go back to Sierra Leone now that there is peace and not civil war, and make a proper application. Provided everything is in order, provided you have somewhere secure to live, provided your partner or spouse is working, and provided you're not going to be dependent on the state, you would be given probably one year initially, then possibly a second year, and then you would be allowed to stay." They would do that.
	The effect of the changes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh suggested, is that those people would not say, "Fine, Simon, that's what I'll do." They would say, "Thank you very much, Mr. Hughes. I may not see you again, and if you see me in the street, don't tell anybody where I am." Let us be realistic about this. If somebody has married and has a child, or has a long-term relationship and has two children, or has just got engaged and is desperately in love with someone, they will not suddenly give that up, with the prospect of at least one year and possibly two, five or 10 years before they can come back. That is just not realistic.
	I was dealing with a case only the other day involving somebody whose children were in care in this country because there had been difficulties, but not the sort of difficulties that meant the family had given up links with them or that the children would not benefit from still having links with both parents. People make mistakes and want to put their lives right. There are all sorts of such cases in which people behave as anybody here in the Chamber would behave.

David Heath: I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the Driving Standards Agency and its approach to the closure of driving test centres. I am particularly glad to see the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris), here to reply. I am not sure how he drew the short straw of replying at this time of night to a debate on a subject for which he does not have direct responsibility, but it gives me the opportunity to remind him that he has made a commitment to come and see what I want done on the A303. We arranged a date and then he was told by his Whips that he was not to come. I hope that he will be able to honour that commitment at some stage in the near future.
	I am also glad that the Minister is here because the last time he deputised for his ministerial colleague, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), it was on the same issue: the closure of driving test centres. The more I have looked into this subject, the more I have realised that we talking about not a local issue for me, but a national issue that is affecting lots of right hon. and hon. Members.
	I want to touch briefly on motorcycle testing, and then spend most of my time talking about the closure of the Trowbridge driving test centre, which is not in my constituency, but in that of the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), whom I am pleased to see in the Chamber. I urge the Minister, if he has copious notes on the benefits of the new multipurpose driving test centre, to please put them aside. I have read them. I know why the Government are introducing the multipurpose centres and about the legislative impetus for that. I think I even recognise that there are advantages to the proposals.
	My argument is simple: the Driving Standards Agency has woefully underprovided in the west country. When the Minister visits me, he will recognise just how big the south-west peninsula is. The region is the size of Belgium, which is the internationally recognised unit of measurement for an area. He will realise that the proposal, as revealed in a parliamentary answer on 5 March to my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), for just two multipurpose driving test centres in the whole of the west country—one in Exeter and one in Gloucester—from October this year, when the new motorcycle testing regime comes into effect, is frankly absurd. For my constituents, neither Exeter nor Gloucester is any more friendly and useful to them in terms of distance than London might be. It is a ridiculously distant area for them to have to travel to. I note from the Minister's previous comments and those from others that the intention is that most motorcycle drivers should not have to travel more than 45 minutes or 20 miles to get to their test centre. For us in the west country, the journey will take at least an hour and a half each way. It is a distance of 50 miles or more. I do not think that that constitutes an appropriate service for my constituents.

David Heath: Precisely. The hon. Gentleman brings me to the subject that I want to spend most of my time discussing: the closure of the Trowbridge driving test centre in his area, and the relocation of the tests to Chippenham. I note all the rhetoric from the Driving Standards Agency about motorcycle tests, and such statements as
	"The centres need to be located in areas with easy access to the regional road network and within a short travelling time of a variety of road conditions".
	When I compare that with practice, however, I cannot reconcile the two statements.
	Following points that I raised about the issue during Business Questions, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town, wrote me a letter. I do not know whether the information that he was given is entirely wrong or whether there has been a massaging of the information so that it fits the criteria, but he wrote:
	"DSA has always been committed to providing tests to candidates living in rural and semi-rural locations."
	That is good news which I would applaud, but the letter continued
	"The nearest alternative site"
	—to Trowbridge, that is—
	"is at Chippenham which is within the 20 mile travel distance criterion for the Trowbridge and Frome area."
	That statement is wholly incorrect, and I shall return to it in a moment.
	The hon. Member for Westbury and I recently joined a motorcade of driving instructors at the Trowbridge test centre. The people who know best about this—the driving instructors—are unanimous in their view that this is an entirely retrograde step, not just for themselves and their businesses but for the people whom they instruct.
	Let me give some of the reasons why it is not appropriate to close the Trowbridge centre and move the business to Chippenham. As the hon. Member for Westbury pointed out, the principal reason is distance. Theoretically, there is a 20-mile maximum for most people to travel to their nearest driving test centre. Indeed, it has been suggested that the Driving Standards Agency's own published code of practice on written consultations relating to driving test centres states that if the distance is more than 20 miles, there will be a formal consultation on any planned procedure.
	I wanted to look that up. I found a written response by the Minister to the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), which set out the basis of the code of practice and gave a helpful web connection. When I pressed the button I found that the site, which showed the consultation papers, no longer exists, so I am still in the dark about the precise terms of the code. However, I am led to believe that the distance is supposed to be a maximum of 20 miles.
	I accept that the distance from Trowbridge to Chippenham is within the 20-mile limit, but Trowbridge test centre does not just serve Trowbridge. It serves the whole of west Wiltshire and the whole of north-east Somerset, because there are no other test centres in the vicinity. Warminster, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westbury, is more than 20 miles from Chippenham. Frome, the major town in my constituency, is 25 miles away, and the journey takes some time. I looked up my village, which is about six miles south of Frome. I have a personal interest: my son has just turned 17, has applied for a provisional licence, and will want to take a driving test. But according to the route planner the distance between my village and Chippenham is 30 miles, so the suggestion that people in my area are within 20 miles of Chippenham is simply incorrect.
	There are also several reasons why we should reject such a distance in any case. First, there is the matter of convenience. Not only does it take a long time to get from a home pick-up to Chippenham, but in the context of a driving lesson that distance extends what would be a one-hour driving lesson to, in the case of someone in the Frome area, a three-hour driving lesson. Not everybody can afford a three-hour driving lesson. Not everyone has enough time in their day to spend three hours on it—the best part of an hour in getting there, an hour's lesson and then the best part of an hour in getting back. It is not convenient.
	Then there are the costs. I have a quotation from  The Wiltshire Times. A driving instructor, Mr. Roger Brunt from Southwick, says:
	"Basically it will cost the client about £200 extra to drive as it takes about half an hour to get to Chippenham from Trowbridge and half an hour back."
	For my constituents in Frome, the sum would be twice that; they would have to pay an extra £400 in order to pass the test.
	There is also the environmental footprint. In terms of other Government policies, it does not make sense to extend driving times, and purely for the convenience of driving test centres rather than their users.
	There is also the disincentive issue. That worries me greatly, particularly in terms of motorcycle tests—people will have a disincentive to take a motorcycle test. They will either continue to drive with L-plates or they will drive illegally and not take the test. Is that what we want to promote? Do the Government intend to discourage people from becoming fully proficient drivers who have passed their test? I hope that that is not the case.
	Another point in terms of convenience is that Chippenham has only four parking bays, which is hardly great if we are to more than double the business at Chippenham. It does not make sense. I am greatly concerned that this will be a retrograde step.
	Is it necessary? No, it is not. I have a letter from Graham Payne, leader of West Wiltshire district council, who wrote to thank me for my support in the fight to retain the driving centre. He gave me a copy of the letter he wrote to the Driving Standards Agency, in which he makes it plain that:
	"As landlord, West Wiltshire District Council is quite happy to continue the lease for the driving centre premises after the break point in September".
	So there is no necessity for the DSA to close this centre.
	I am left with the view that it is being closed for reasons of administrative convenience, not for the convenience of people who want to learn to drive, and that it will lead to huge extra costs and inconvenience for people in my constituency who want to learn to drive. I am sorry, but I just do not accept the view expressed by the Minister and Rosemary Thew, the chief executive of the DSA, that it is quite unnecessary to practise on test routes. That is not the experience of any instructor or of anyone who has ever learned to drive.
	I note that the Wessex Association of Driving Instructors invited Ms Thew and the Secretary of State to come to Chippenham and to take a test unsighted, as it were, of local driving conditions and the local area, and to see if they passed. Unhappily, they did not accept the challenge. We all accept that we are expected to learn to drive in all conditions, but we do not go to take a test without first familiarising ourselves with the area in which it will take place. That is axiomatic.

Andrew Murrison: As the hon. Gentleman will know, Chippenham is not exactly easy terrain for those who do not know the lie of the land. He is right to say that the driving test is taken on the basis that the person involved does not necessarily have any familiarity with the stretch of road used, but people who are familiar with Chippenham are clearly at a distinct advantage in comparison with my constituents and those of the hon. Gentleman. Does he not agree that if the change goes ahead, people in, for example, Frome and Warminster will feel obliged to have at least one or two—and probably four—extra round trips to Chippenham?

Tom Harris: I begin by offering apologies on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is detained on important constituency business.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on securing the debate on what is clearly an important issue to him and his constituents. In response to his request, I will of course honour my commitment to visit his constituency at an early opportunity—this time, I hope, without interference from the very helpful Government Whips.
	Despite the hon. Gentleman's exhortations, it is important to set out the context of recent and proposed changes to the delivery of driving tests, because without that context many of his criticisms and observations would go unanswered. European Union legislation on driving licences, agreed in 2000, set higher minimum requirements for driving tests. The higher standards are intended to ensure that the matters assessed in the theory and practical tests are relevant to modern driving conditions.
	Those new EU standards have introduced extra and more demanding special manoeuvres that must be included in every practical motorcycling test undertaken in Great Britain from September 2008. One of the new requirements adds a higher-speed emergency braking manoeuvre to the motorcycling test. That must be conducted at no less than 50 kph, which is equivalent to 31 mph.
	There are overwhelming road safety objections to conducting a higher-speed emergency braking exercise where there might be pedestrians or other traffic. Ministers therefore asked the Driving Standards Agency, which is responsible for delivering the driving and riding test in Great Britain, to explore delivery of those manoeuvres from off-road testing areas free of other traffic. The new EU standards support our domestic strategy for reducing road casualties, "Tomorrow's roads—safer for everyone".
	Introduced in 2000, the strategy set some challenging targets for reducing the number of road casualties. By 2010, we want to reduce by 40 per cent. the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads and to reduce by 10 per cent. the number of slight casualties, compared to the 1994 to 1998 average.
	Motorcycling is becoming increasingly popular. More people are using motorcycles and mopeds to beat congestion and for leisure. We recognise that motorcycling has a role to play in transport as a whole. Our aim is to facilitate motorcycling as a travel choice within a safe and sustainable transport framework. To that end, in 2005 we published our motorcycling strategy in partnership with motorcycling and other interests.
	Sadly, the downside to all that is that motorcyclists represent a large proportion of road casualties. They make up about 1 per cent. of road traffic but suffer about 20 per cent. of deaths and serious injuries. Although the overall number of road casualties is falling, the number of deaths among motorcyclists is increasing. That is a matter of considerable concern for the Government and for Members on both sides of the House.
	The road safety strategy gave improvements to driver training and testing an important role in producing safer drivers and riders, and identified European developments as a factor in future changes to the driving test. For example, we believe that the changes to the motorcycle practical test will contribute to a reduction in motorcyclist casualty rates.
	The proposals for the implementation of the new EU driving test requirements were the subject of public consultation in December 2002. Consultees were offered the opportunity to comment on a number of service delivery options. They showed a preference for a single practical test with off-road testing of special manoeuvres, including the higher-speed emergency braking exercise, taking place immediately before the general on-road riding assessment. That significantly reduces the safety risks of on-road testing while addressing the cost and access concerns raised by some consultees. Ministers decided to implement the new requirements in the way that most consultees preferred.
	To facilitate delivery of the new manoeuvres, the DSA identified a need to develop a national network of driving test centres, based on an updated design with the appropriate facilities to conduct all the special manoeuvres. To exploit the value of the investment in those new centres, the DSA has decided that, wherever possible, they will be multi-purpose test centres. In addition to the practical motorcycling test, they will be utilised to deliver other types of practical test for learner car, lorry and bus drivers. When not being used for tests, the DSA hopes to make the off-road test facilities available for training purposes.
	This point refers to something that the hon. Gentleman mentioned repeatedly: the intention is that most—not all—motorcycle test candidates should be able to reach an MPTC centre within 45 minutes, travelling no more than 20 miles. I cannot have a map included in the  Official Report, but, after the debate, I will be more than happy to share with the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) a useful map showing exactly what the demand is among their constituents for testing at Chippenham.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said in his closing remarks that people in Frome do not go to Chippenham—I think he was talking specifically about driving testing. In fact, the map clearly shows that there was considerable demand among his constituents for testing at Chippenham even before the proposed closure at Trowbridge. It is not a matter of opinion, but simply a matter of reading out the statistics showing the number of his constituents who already opt to be tested at Chippenham. I am more than happy to share that information with him after the debate.
	We have concluded that between 40 and 50 multi-purpose driving test centres would be required to meet the service standard criteria. However, to maximise population coverage and minimise the number of candidates who have to travel for more than 45 minutes or further than 20 miles, we are seeking to develop about 60 multi-purpose test centres. I want to emphasise that we are doing so in order to minimise the number of candidates who have to travel for more than 45 minutes or 20 miles, not to reduce that number to zero.
	As the DSA did not own or lease any sites that could provide a sufficient area of hard standing upon which to undertake the new manoeuvres, a programme of land acquisition and construction was initiated in 2005. Since December 2005, the DSA has acquired 41 sites. In addition to allowing the DSA to maximise the use of the MPTCs by conducting car, lorry and bus tests from them, those sites will offer improved accommodation and facilities for customers and staff. As well as being fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the new centres will support the Government's wider sustainability agenda.
	The provision of the MPTCs does not come cheap. The final cost will be in the region of £71 million. That cost will largely be recovered through increased fees paid by driving test candidates. If those fee increases are to be kept to a minimum, the DSA must continue to seek efficiencies in the way it conducts its business. That includes reviewing existing driving test centre provision to ensure that while the service standard is maintained, there is no wasteful over-provision of facilities.
	The service standard for car practical driving test centre provision is based on population density. Where population density is between 101 and 1,249 people per square kilometre, candidates should not have to travel more than 20 miles to a test centre. Where the density is less than 101, the distance to a test centre should be no more than 30 miles. The service standard applying to the Trowbridge area is that candidates should not have to travel more than 20 miles.
	The September 2008 lease break for the premises occupied by the Trowbridge driving test centre provides an opportunity to reconsider service provision in the area it serves. Most customers who attend the Trowbridge driving test centre will have access to alternative facilities at Chippenham and Bristol, Brislington. Both centres are within 20 miles of Trowbridge, although I accept that the Bristol centre is almost exactly 20 miles away. The centres have the capacity to absorb the demand from Trowbridge without compromising waiting time targets.
	The closure of Trowbridge driving test centre will result in savings of around £14,000 a year. Equally importantly, the closure will not compromise the DSA's service standard criteria. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the difficulty, in rural areas, of striking the right balance between the provision of a satisfactory level of public service and the cost that service incurs. In closing the Trowbridge driving test centre, I believe the DSA has struck a sensible balance. Although I understand the natural desire to practise driving in the area close to the test centre, I am not persuaded that it is necessarily a sound argument for deciding where to locate driving test centres.

David Heath: We have pinned down the argument. Trowbridge is being closed in order to save money in order to equip multi-purpose test centres that will be an hour and a half away for my constituents. That does not seem a terribly good deal. Is the Minister really saying that the majority of people who use the Trowbridge test centre will be within 20 miles of Chippenham? I am not asking whether Trowbridge is within 20 miles of Chippenham, but whether the majority of people who use that test centre will be.